


After Every Storm There is a Rainbow (and ours is primary colored)

by noxelementalist



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Ninja Storm
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Dating, Evil Twins, F/M, First Dates, First Kiss, Gen, Heterosexuality, I probably need more tags, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Motocross, Motorcycles, Multi, Ninja, OT3, Orphans, Polyamory, Pop Culture, Samurai, Skateboarding, Slow Build, Surfing, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenagers, What Have I Done, fandom anniversary, long fic, otp, so many other fandom tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-09-17 03:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 101,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist
Summary: In which Tori makes a good life choice, Dustin makes people feel things, and Hunter makes up his damn mind.Author’s notes: Inspired by and written for 3 of my oldest fandom friends, PunkPinkPower, Starandrea, and Hagar. This November marks 10 years I’ve had the honor and pleasure of knowing you all. A lot has happened in that time, but I’m eternally grateful I reached out and you replied because you have been so, so amazing and I know I’ve grown immensely as a person from knowing you.So this is for all of you. All of it: high/low/realistic/crackish moments, dated pop-culture references, song-lyric chapter titles with random selections of quotes, hidden plot bunnies and typos that avoided my self-beta: all for you.It’s been an excellent 10 years. May the next 10 years turn out to be even more so![And for you first-time Power Rangers Ninja Storm readers out there, this is a season rewrite. It’s massively spoiler heavy. You don’t need to have seen the season, but it definitely helps. Also, please make a good life choice and check out the “Inspired By” links to see a sample of my friends own amazing fanfiction.]





	1. Cover Page

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starandrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starandrea/gifts), [PunkPinkPower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkPinkPower/gifts), [Hagar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Year of Thunder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9260471) by [starandrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starandrea/pseuds/starandrea). 
  * Inspired by [Out of the Darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9260990) by [starandrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starandrea/pseuds/starandrea). 
  * Inspired by [Constellations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10639) by [Hagar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar). 
  * Inspired by [Two Sides of Midnight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8721) by [Hagar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar). 
  * Inspired by [Hey There, Delilah](https://archiveofourown.org/works/597892) by [PunkPinkPower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkPinkPower/pseuds/PunkPinkPower). 
  * Inspired by [Cyber Hunter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/477038) by [PunkPinkPower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkPinkPower/pseuds/PunkPinkPower). 



 


	2. Dedication

 

 

 

 

To my dear friends Starandrea, PunkPinkPower, and Hagar:

 

Thank you for helping me brave the weather


	3. Part I: An Assemblage of Primary Colors




	4. Chapter I: Prelude to a Storm

_“Beginnings are always messy.”_

  * John Galsworthy



 

_February 14, 2003, 10:50 PM_

The white house at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Palm Street wasn’t special. It had light red shutters and a clean walk across a fenced-off lawn, with a small, metal mailbox that was nailed onto its doorpost below where its numbers hung. And on a normal day in the Beach Street subdivision of Blue Bay Harbor, a person walking through that neighborhood would’ve seen ordinary things through the windows. People would be seen eating or watching TV, teenagers sitting by desktops “studying” while they sent instant messages over AOL chat. At least, until it was nighttime, when the house lights would flicker off one by one as everyone went to bed.

Today, however, had not been a normal day for the residents of the white house at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Palm Street.

Carolyn Hanson had spent her day at work at Blue Harbor Elementary trying to convince third graders that their parents did, in fact, still need to update their school emergency contact cards even if there wasn’t an emergency going on. Conrad Hanson had spent his day trying to get his work computer to _not_ crash whenever he opened up Internet Explorer and RealPlayer at the same time. They had come home exhausted, ate a quiet dinner with their daughter, and collapsed into bed, vowing quietly to celebrate Valentine’s Day properly with each other tomorrow.

But it was their daughter, Tori, who had had the most not-normal day of all.

“I turned into a Power Ranger,” she muttered to herself as she stared at the darkened ceiling of her bedroom from where she was trying to fall sleep on her bed. “I actually turned _into_ a _Power Ranger_.”

Sighing, Tori rolled onto her side, trying not to wince too much at the slight bruise that hadn’t faded away yet since their fight with Blue Face— _and what kind of name is that anyway?_ Tori thought. _Are all aliens named that weirdly?_

Normally her Water Ninja skills would’ve been enough to heal the bruise, but apparently not this time.

_It’s probably because they’re shocked from me turning into a Power Ranger._

It wasn’t like she had planned on it. Tori had just picked up Shane and Dustin from their shifts at Storm Chargers to head over to the Wind Ninja Academy. They were running late, which, alright, maybe _that_ was her fault for stopping to fix the Johnsons’ car. But being late was _not_ supposed to end with her arriving to find a giant crater where the Academy had been, get escorted by their Sensei’s son into a secret, conveniently-located, underground base with high-tech computer monitors, sonic-laser weaponry, morphers, and their own Sensei, who had apparently been transformed into a guinea pig when the Academy had been attacked.

_Who expects sonic-lasers? Nobody does,_ Tori thought to herself. _Okay, maybe Dustin, but Dustin’s a comic geek, he’s addicted to this stuff, I could take him out surfing and he’d think he’d find the lost wreckage of Divatox’s Subcraft there. Oh no, what if it really_ is _there? That’s a Ranger thing, it could totally be— no, no. I_ refuse _to accept the existence of a fish-shaped submarine in my harbor. That is- that is_ not _a thing that’s happening._

Groaning, Tori shifted around, hoping that if she found a comfortable spot she might be able to not think about any of it.

“Okay, fine,” Tori grumbled after giving up. “Let’s see if you work like the ones in those stupid comics.” Silently she reached and picked up her morpher from the floor. “Dustin? Shane?”

At first there was nothing, but then. “‘ri?” a tired, deep sounding voice muttered. “Wha?”

“Tori, is that you?” came a higher voice. “Shane, it’s Tori!”

“Guys, why are your voices coming out of the wrist-strap thingy,” Shane grumbled.

“Cam called them morphers Shane,” Tori whispered back. “And it’s because we’re talking into ours.”

“Wait, the morphers are walky-talkies?!” Dustin shouted, his voice ringing out almost at a loud whisper.

“Dude, it’s almost eleven, chill,” Shane mumbled. “We don’t wake our folks, right Tori?”

“My parents are sleeping the deep sleep of exhausted teachers and newspaper reporters,” Tori whispered back, “but yeah, I’d appreciate it if we didn’t wake up all of Blue Bay Harbor.”

“Right, sorry,” Dustin whispered back. “It’s just, this is so cool! Our morphers have a comms line. It’s like having a secret cellphone. Being a Ranger _rocks_!”

“I’m still getting over the part that it’s, you know, a thing. Like, this is actually a thing we are doing,” Tori mumbled.

“Really?” Shane asked.

“Yes, really, and stop giggling at me.”

“We’re- we’re not giggling at you, honest,” Dustin stammered.

“I can hear you two trying to stifle over this thing,” Tori pointed out. The two boys held out in silence slightly longer before finally bursting out in quiet chuckles, the tinny sounds of it whispering from the morpher into Tori’s ear.

“Wow, not going with the flow much, are you surfer girl?” Shane teased.

“I’m sorry, I thought we decided in the car that Dustin was the mellow one on this team.”

“Yeah, you know it,” Dustin said.

‘But how _else_ did you think I’d react to the abduction of a whole Ninja Academy, getting super powers, and a guinea pig Sensei?” Tori hissed.

“Thought he was a hamster,” Shane said.

“…he’s a guinea pig?” Dustin said confusedly.

“Wait?” Shane asked, sounding as if he’d been distracted.

“Sensei’s a guinea pig,” Dustin said. “Like, we saw the video.”

“Dude, why does that even matter?”

“Uh ‘cause they’re completely different from hamsters? You don’t want to insult Sensei by calling him the wrong species.”

“I don’t think Sensei’s going to care. I mean, he didn’t about people misnaming his hawk morph.”

“Dude,” Dustin said, sounding horrified. “Dude, no. You can’t just- what are you, _speciest_?”

“Hey, he’s a guy trapped in a hamster—”

“Guinea. Pig.”

“Dustin,” Shane hissed. “Come. On.”

“No,” Dustin grumbled back. “Name him right man.”

Tori huffed, and silently began the meditative practice of teenage girls dealing with difficult teenage boys everywhere known as “taking a deep breath and counting to ten, slowly,” while she listened to them bicker about the exact intricacies of calling their Sensei a guinea pig or a hamster. It was almost comforting, she realized, to know that the mass societal disruption of their everyday lives was powerless to effect so great a change as to make Dustin not care about correctly identifying species of small fuzzy animals.

“Guys,” she said at last, “we’re all going to keep calling him Sensei, his species isn’t my point.”

“Is your point Shane needs to learn some sensitivity for small mammalians?” Dustin asked.

“No,” Tori said exasperatedly, “although he clearly does—”

“—hey!”

“—my _point_ ,” Tori continued, “is that we have _super powers_ and I have _no idea_ what to _do_ with that!”

“Oh,” Dustin said quietly, followed by what sounded like a desk lamp clicking on. “Ah, well, you’re going to want to make sure your surfboard’s reinforced, ‘cause in the _Lightspeed_ narrative arc that was definitely an issue the Blue Ranger had—”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“—and probably want to prep for the wardrobe change.”

“Wardrobe change? _What_ wardrobe change?” Tori asked.

“I’d better not be getting new clothes, man, I _just_ got my t-shirts worn the way I like them,” Shane interrupted.

“Nah, it’s a color thing,” Dustin said. “Just, like, you get way more of the one you are.”

“Oh,” Shane said. “Well, I already got enough red and black for my taste.”

“Yeah- oh, _man_ , how I’m gonna explain the yellow thing to my folks? They’ll totally _wig_ out if it my closet turns yellow.”

“Stripes, duh,” Tori whispered back, staring longingly at the soft pinks and yellows in her closet and wondering how she could match them with blue if she needed to, ‘cause there was no way she was getting a whole new wardrobe. Nobody in the Hanson household made that kind of money. _Well, at least my jeans are all blue,_ she thought to herself.

“Like plaid?” Dustin whispered back.

“Yeah, like, with white tees,” Shane added.

“What is with you guys and tees,” Tori whispered. “And no, I really did just mean stripes, you know, _horizontal lines,_ but sure, plaid works too.”

“Have you been by the skate park lately Tori?” Dustin said. “They’re all tees.”

“Ah, no, Shane, I’ve- wait, _really_?”

“Not a single collar to be seen,” Shane confirmed.

“Shane. No,” Tori said.

“Collars are for preps and posers Tor,” Shane replied back. “I’m doing it right, thanks.”

“Ugh, how am I friends with you people,” Tori teased.

“You don’t see me telling you to wear a wetsuit do you?”

“Because I already do!”

“Yeah,” Dustin whispered yawning. “You do.”

“Aw, feeling sleepy?” Tori said.

“It is pretty late Tor,” Shane said.

“You got a point there.”

“Hey, we’re still hanging out tomorrow at Storm Chargers, right?” Dustin asked sleepily.

“Yeah,” Tori said.

“Good,” Dustin replied. “‘Cause I’ve got a lot of ideas about Ninja-Ranger stuff, but, sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah, go to bed Dustin,” Tori said.

“Yeah, G’nite,” Shane added.

“Night,” Dustin whispered, the sound of a lamp clicking off following soon after. “I hope hitting this button turns off the—”

“Welp, guess he remembered how to turn the morpher off,” Shane laughed as Dustin cut off.

“Guess so,” Tori replied. “Glad we talked him out of thinking it had video games earlier.”

“Yeah…hey Tor?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m…I’m not over it either, ya know?” Shane whispered tiredly. “It’s a lot to take in, and everything. But for what it’s worth, if I had to be stuck here with Cam and Sensei Guinea-Hamster with anyone, I’m glad it’s you and Dust.”

“Thanks Shane,” Tori said. “That…actually helps a lot.”

“See you in the morning?”

“See you,” Tori said. “Night Shane.”

“Night,” Shane replied before letting go of the communicator button, the sudden lack of background static filling the air for a brief moment before Tori put her communicator away.

_They’re right, I don’t have to process it all tonight,_ Tori thought to herself sleepily. _We’ll take care of it in the morning together._


	5. Chapter II: The Falling Leaves Drift By

_“I am no bird, and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”_

  * Charlotte Bronte



 

_February 18, 2003, 6:00 p.m._

Dustin blinked his eyes as he and Tori walked out of the entrance of Ninja Ops, the light suddenly bouncing off the edge of the newly formed Wind Ninja Academy crater stabbing him in the eyes. _Yeah, great,_ Dustin thought to himself. _First Shane stabs me in the back and leaves me to bomb in that sand trap thing, and now sunlight hates me. This is bogus._ The whole thing had left him try spending an extra thirty minutes trying to wash sand out of places that hadn’t been sanded since Tori last tried to teach him how to surf, all while he was exhausted, but that was yesterday. Today Shane admitted he’d been a jerk, which Dustin had felt so good busting him on, and they’d gotten sick new zords.

Things were starting to look up.

“Okay, but I mean, come on, my lion has seat warmers. _Seat_ _Warmers_ , Tor,” he was telling the Blue Ranger as they walked towards the waterfall exit on their way back to her van. “I am _so_ stoked. Can’t believe Cam held out on us this long!”

Tori sighed. “Dustin, you can’t go around driving a giant yellow lion around Blue Bay Harbor,” she said patiently.

“But _why_? It’s not like anyone’s going to notice.”

“Not- you just said it’s massive! How’re you going to hide an eight story tall lion with a spinning mane-tornado attack?”

“First off, so not gonna randomly attack parts of town as we’re riding around—”

“—yeah right.”

“Second,” Dustin continued, “how does Cam hide it?”

“That’s…a really good question,” Tori said. “Maybe they’re using some of kind of Wind ninja skill to disguise themselves?”

“Then we just figure out the illusion and ta-da! They _totally_ won’t be noticed!”

“Dustin, no.”

Dustin groaned. “Pretty please?” he asked, trying to walk in front of Tori. “Just one time.”

“You know what, fine,” Tori grumbled. “If you figure out how I can drive my dolphin through the harbor, I’ll think about backing you asking Cam to do a drive downtown.”

“All you gotta do is dive down under the water right?”

Tori paused, before briefly raising her morpher. “Hey, uh, Shane?”

“Uh yeah?” Shane replied.

“Is Cam anywhere near you?” Tori asked, causing Dustin to do a tiny victory dance.

“I’m right here Tori,” Cam said. “What is it?”

“I want to take my lion for a drive,” Dustin blurted out.

“No.”

“It’s not like anyone’s going to notice!” Dustin said. “Like, Tori can just dive her dolphin under—”

“You can’t just randomly dive a cruise ship Dustin.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Cruise ship?” Tori asked at last.

“But it bounced and juggled that goon like…not a cruise ship?” Dustin asked shortly after her.

A brief burst of static came over the morpher. “I do have to hide the zords when they’re not being cared for at Ninja Ops somehow you know,” Cam said. “Just because the Dolphin Zord has a personality doesn’t mean it can randomly hang out in the middle of Blue Bay Harbor where everyone can see it.”

“Dude,” Dustin said, awed. “Did you-did he- you really hid the Dolphin Zord _in a cruise ship_?!”

“What _other_ ship was going to be large enough without exposing us and causing military people to check us out?” Cam replied.

“You realize I’m now going to have to spend my evenings watching my dad relive that one Scooby Doo episode and try to explain a vanishing cruise ship full of people multiple times over,” Tori asked.

“Oh, well, when you put it like that,” Shane started.

“Would you prefer watching him get abducted by evil space aliens?” Cam asked.

“Hey, man, that was low. I mean, I get that the whole Wind Ninja Academy getting sucked into space, you know, royally blows,” Dustin started before catching sight of Tori frantically drawing her hand backing and forth across her throat, “but, ah, you gotta do you?”

“As incredibly awkward as that attempt at a pep talk was,” Cam said slowly, “my apologies. It was just exhausting trying to get the zords hidden in the first place, and for the record, I made sure to cover all the paperwork to keep that thing docked and empty for as long as we need it.”

“Right,” Tori said apologetically. “I mean, if you hid mine in a ship, I can only imagine where you hid the others.”

“Shane’s a plane,” Cam said.

“Well, duh.” Shane replied. “It _flies_.”

“And Dustin’s part roller coaster, part Ferris wheel.”

“DUDE I OWN A FERRIS WHEEL?!” Dustin shouted. “Okay, new plan, forget cruising around town, we are going to the carnival and bonding with my zord _right now_.”

“Sensei kinda asked me to stay and talk with him for a bit,” Shane said.

“But Ferris wheel!”

“Dude, I’ll catch the next bonding time,” Shane said.

“What makes you think there’s going to be another bonding time?” Tori asked.

“Your zord’s a cruise ship,” Shane replied over the morpher. “You think we’re not going to find some way to get onto that thing?”

“Oh, well, in _that_ case, I want a flight to Australia on your zord. They’ve got pretty righteous waves down there.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Cam interrupted. “Because in case you forgot, it’s _February_.”

“Spring Break then,” Dustin said.

“Why do I bother?” Cam said.

“Cause you love us,” Tori teased.

“Obviously,” Dustin said. “I mean, have you seen us? You even had our suits tailored.”

“That was for the obvious tactical advantage of having a uniform that fits you!”

“Whatever,” Dustin said. “Hey, you wanna come with me and Tori?”

“No,” Cam said. “I’ve got monitor duty.”

“If you say so,” Tori said.

“Hey, by the way,” Dustin added, hurrying to stop Tori from lifting her hand to turn her morpher off. “Where do our _normal_ clothes go? You know, when we’re not in Ranger duds.”

“Into the morpher,” Cam answered, “You should be able to switch out of them using the—”

A scoffing sound came over the line. “You can’t just _digitize_ _clothing_!” Shane said.

“Shane, my man,” Dustin replied, “let’s not doubt the dude who hides multi-story robotic animals in three completely separate metal, human-bearing thingies.”

Tori snickered. “Metal, human-bearing thingies?” she asked.

“What else do a cruise ship, a Ferris wheel, and a plane have in common?”

“You know, the park closes in two hours,” Cam said.

“Right, let’s go!” Dustin said, pulling Tori after him.

“You know, I just realized,” Tori said. “Those seats are going to be pretty cold this late in the day.”

“Nah,” Dustin replied. “Like I said before, it’s got seat warmers. We’re going to be toasty the whole ride!”

 

 

_February 22, 2003, 2:45 PM_

Dustin was remembering that afternoon at the park when he saw Shane head over to talk with Tori. “What are you looking at?” he heard Tori ask.

“Nothing,” Shane replied. “I was just noticing that you’re not completely _unbeautiful_ you know.”

“Gee thanks?”

 _Showtime,_ Dustin thought. “Ah Tori,” he said, walking over from behind his counter at the back of Storm Chargers. “There’s a customer over there who needs help with a surfboard. Can you do me a favor and go talk with him?”

“You _do_ realize I don’t actually work here.”

“Just go and talk with him,” Dustin replied, pushing her a bit before Tori walked over to where a guy with wavy brown hair and a matching brown-white Hawaiian shirt stood staring at the surfboards in Storm Chargers’ main window.

“Can I help you?” Tori asked him.

“Dude you did it,” Dustin whispered to Shane after a moment, fist bumping him as they watched Tori recognize who the guy was. “How long did it take you to find that guy?”

Shane shrugged, the motion bunching his gray muscle shirt (that Dustin refused to call a wife beater, ‘cause seriously, _why_?) slightly along Shane’s shoulder. “Like, five minutes,” he told Dustin, following him into the workspace behind the counter to sit down on a bench as Dustin grabbed a towel to wipe the cash register down. “Took another ten to convince Dill that I’d checked with Tor and that I was wrong when I said earlier that she wasn’t down to talk with him.”

“Sweet. It’s nice you hunted him down,” Dustin said.

“I mean, I still don’t think he’s cool enough for her,” Shane grumbled. “Seriously listening to all the ‘she’s so awesome and cute,’ was so lame.”

“But let's be real, shouldn’t she decide that? ‘Cause we’re really bad at this you know.”

“Bad about what _Waldo_?” Shane asked, teasingly.

“ _That_ spider-boy,” Dustin said as he wiped. “We are _so_ _bad_ at this whole knowing stuff about each other thing. I know we’ve pretty much known each other for years and all, but last week you had to be reminded to trust us—”

“—aw, come on, man, I said I was sorry about that—”

“—and now we both forgot that Tori, you know, should get to, like, date people she likes and stuff,” Dustin said. “Like, I get not knowing all of each other’s deepest darkest secrets, but we should at least be able to remember who we’d want to be flirty with.”

“Did you have to say flirty?” Shane said wincing. “I was trying not to picture that. It’s like trying to imagine _Kelly_ dating.”

“That’s my point!” Dustin huffed, walking away from the cash register towards the back to sit across from Shane, flinging the towel over onto his shoulder as he went. “Why is it so hard? No, I’m serious,” he added as he saw Shane begin to laugh, “Why is it hard to imagine Tori flirting? I mean, I could totally picture you flirting with a guy, we should be able to imagine Tori flirting with a guy like Dill without her being alien-napped and almost replaced by an evil twin.”

“My taste in guys is way better than Barney twinks thanks,” Shane blurted out.

“Bro,” Dustin said, feeling his eyes grow wide.

“Not that I’d ever, ah- I mean-”

“Dude, do you know what a twink _is_?” Dustin whispered.

“…yes?”

There was a pause as Dustin stared at the man sitting across from him.

“Dustin?”

 _“Bro,_ ” Dustin repeated. “Do-do you—?”

“Dustin—”

“Are you gay?” Dustin asked softly.

“…Yeah,” Shane replied quietly. “I-I am. Is that okay?”

Dustin had been in third grade when he’d first ridden a motorcycle. He loved it so much he managed to get Mrs. Appleby, the school librarian— who all the kids, had called “Old Mrs. A” because she had worked there longer than _anyone_ else— to let him borrow books from the local library system, some of them meant for kids a _whole_ _six years_ older than him. And he did.

In fact, Dustin had checked out ran through those motorcycle books and magazines the way he binged on Power Rangers comics. He ran through them so fast and thoroughly it was like some cosmic force had dilated the flow of time itself to let Dustin educate himself on minute pieces of trivia that would only score him bonus points at a convention without compromising his report card. And somewhere in between James Dean and Marlon Brando Dustin had come to realize that some of these riders were totally okay wearing skin-tight clothes and making out with each other as well as girls too, something the soon-to-be fourth grader found completely sensible because, hey, he’d like to kiss people who liked riding as much as he did too.

It would take another five years— and several really, _really_ awkward motocross competition moments— before Dustin would realize that maybe that wasn’t normal to most people even if it was _definitely_ normal to him.

It was with this in mind that Dustin finally whispered back, “Ah yeah, totally!”

“Really?” Shane asked, sounding skeptical.

“Hey, I’m just glad to find another dude okay with that,” Dustin said. “It’s not like there’s a lot of us in town, far as I know.

“Dude, seriously, _you_?” Shane asked, gesturing at him.

“What?”

“You…wear _plaid_.”

“You guys said it’d help with the color thing!” Dustin said, gesturing at Shane’s own red shorts.

Shane burst out laughing. “This is the weirdest conversation of my life,” Shane said.

“Yeah, tell me about it. Here I am thinking you’re totally bogus at recognizing Tori’s Abercrombie and Fitch hot when really you just don’t dig it,” Dustin finished.

Shane shook his head. “That swimsuit photo shoot turned out to be a trap, remember?”

“This time maybe.”

For a few seconds there was silence.”

“So you, ah, also like kissing dudes?” Shane asked.

“Yeah. I mean, dudes or dudettes,” Dustin said. “Don’t know if there’s a label for that like being gay.”

“Bi,” Shane said.

“Ah, hello?”

“No—”

“Wait, is there a customer at the- nope, still empty,” Dustin said, glancing towards the front. “Man, we seriously need better shifts. I can only work on bikes and wipe down counters so long.”

“No, that’s, that’s the term. Bisexual,” Shane clarified. “Or bi, for short. It means you dig multiple genders.”

“For real?”

“I looked it up.”

“You- Why?”

“For reasons,” Shane said. “It may have been the first time I ever had to erase my internet history.”

“Oh. Cool,” Dustin said, filing the label away for later. “But see, I’d never have learned that if I didn’t trust you to _know_ that about me, which brings me back to the whole ‘we don’t trust or know each other much’ thing.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Look, some things you just gotta keep secret, you know?”

“Well yeah, but it’s Tori and me, man,” Dustin said. “We’re amigos. Amigas? No, better, we’re _Rangers_ , that’s like being family.”

“Dustin—”

“I mean, what if instead of a lame surfer dude there was, like, a pair of hot biker dudes just chilling out in here one day,” Dustin said, once again making Shane burst out laughing. “We could end up in _so much_ trouble.”

“Dustin,” Shane said, “I promise you, that if we ever wind up with a pair of hot biker dudes, we will tell Tori that we’re gunning for them. She’d straight up kill us if we didn’t.”

“Awesome,” Dustin said. “But we can work up to that too right? Maybe spend some time outside of Rangering, Ninjaing, working to just, you know, chill?”

Shane smiled. “I’m game,” he said. “Let’s check with Tori after she’s done with Dill to see what she’s up for.”

Dustin punched the air triumphantly. “Sweet!”


	6. Chapter III: Keeper of the Peace

_“A stunning first impression was not the same thing as love at first sight. But surely it was an invitation to consider the matter.”_

  * Lois McMaster Bujold



 

 

_March 1, 2003, 10:15 AM_

Shane had hoped it would be a nice, calm quiet weekend for once. Spring Break was only a few weeks away— he was still pushing Cam to let them spend part of it on Tori’s zord, because that was clearly way more awesome than bumming around Blue Bay— and Shane figured that would mean more folks coming to Storm Chargers _,_ meaning he and Dustin wouldn’t have to spend their shifts boxing inventory.

And Shane had almost gotten it too. Dustin had gone off with Kelly to a racing competition, leaving him alone in the store all morning. Mornings were always slow— people didn’t really start coming in until noon during the school year— and so Shane spent it watching reruns of the Opening Ceremony from last year’s Winter Olympics off the sponsor highlight reel Kelly had gotten. But then his morpher had started sounding an alarm, and Shane had almost lost the chill he’d had by the time he managed to get to the woods way out on the opposite side of Blue Harbor after getting the new motorcycles Cam called Tsunami Cycles. It had been really good timing because seriously, Shane had _not_ been up for walking that distance.

_I should’ve figured everyone coming out would include the Kelzacks,_ he thought bitterly as he punched one, trying to clear a path for the bike to move in the woods towards Dustin, who was lying on his back in the forest below, surrounded by a pack of them wielding spears.

“Shane, I think we’re good,” Tori called out. “Let’s go!”

“If you say so,” Shane said, revving his bike to go forward. Tori followed after, the two of them launching forward with ease, and it was only moments later that the pair of them shot forward and over the Kelzacks. “That was awesome!” Shane shouted.

“What- where’d the bikes come from? Aw, dude!” Shane heard Dustin shout disappointedly from behind, before starting to cheer them on.

“You know,” he could hear Cam say in reply, sounding irritated, “I told those guys just to ride the Tsunami Cycles, not to engage the enemy. Of course, no one ever listens to the guy with glasses.”

Normally Shane would’ve answered both of them, but it turned out that trying to slash Kelzacks from the back of a motorcycle was way more time and attention consuming than doing it on foot was, and Shane soon tuned out what he figured was Dustin and Cam talking shop to pay attention to fighting.

“This is like riding on horseback,” Shane hurried Tori mutter to herself. “Do I look like a samurai to you?”

“Yeah, we’re going to have to remind Cam we’re ninjas,” Shane grunted out as he tried to turn the bike around, the dirt of the forest floor not making it easy. “Tori, where are you?” Shane asked.

“Right behind you,” Shane heard her reply, before adding a “these are great Cam!” The shout was followed by a strong thud, the resonations of which Shane soon felt rippling under this bike.

“Tori,” he shouted, turning his bike around. “Are you okay?”

“Never better,” she said. “I just jumped Dustin _and_ Cam!”

“And here I thought Dustin was the motocross dude,” he teased as he lurched forward again.

“What, are you saying girls can’t ride?”

“That is not what I’m saying at all.”

“Whoa, so these are the Tsunami Cycles? I thought those these things were months away from being ready!” Shane heard Dustin tell Cam. “Wait, you’ve got something for me too right?”

“No,” replied Cam neutrally, making Shane and Tori laugh as they continued to ride around hitting Kelzacks. “Should I?”

“Dude, come on! Quit joking around, man.”

“You- tell him- Dustin,” Tori managed to grit out over the comms as she swerved to avoid a Kelzack striking her.

“I mean, you’re not _seriously_ saying the motocross guy is the only one that doesn’t get a Tsunami Cycle?”

“All right, all right, fine,” Cam said, his voice followed by the sound of a large vehicle coming up, a vehicle that Shane managed to turn around just in time to see was a huge mobile trailer.

“Meet your new mobile command center,” Cam was saying, “and check this out.”

“Oh, _dude_!” Dustin said.

“Tor, I think Dustin might’ve fallen in love,” Shane said, trying to pull his bike closer towards the Blue Ranger.

“I dunno, it’s not his only bike,” Tori said, while in the background Dustin continued to ask Cam questions about the yellow Tsunami Cycle.

“That’s like saying you only love your first surfboard.”

“Whoo-hoo!” Dustin shouted, his voice followed mere moments by a flash of yellow riding on a large yellow motorcycle. “Let’s take out some Kelzacks baby!”

The three of them combined turned out to be more than what the Kelzacks could handle.

“Now that’s what I call trail riding!” Dustin shouted as they rode back to the mobile command center. “250s here I come!”

“That was fun,” Shane said as he dismounted and de-morphed, resisting the urge to pinch at his shirt. He still got a headache trying to figure out exactly _how_ their clothes came back— especially when he thought about Dustin’s suggestion that it involved nano-ninjas— but then, it didn’t feel any different than changing into ninja uniforms, so he tried not to worry about it.

“Yeah,” Tori added, pulling her bike next to his. “I think I can see why Dustin likes it so much. It’s definitely fast and wild.”

“Oh baby,” Dustin said, wrapping his arms around the front of his yellow Tsunami Cycle. “I’m never letting this go. Like, we’ll beat the evil space ninjas, and I will take this bike with me. This bike is going to my Ranger trophy bike, right here.”

“Hey guys,” Cam said as they approached.

“Yo, man,” Dustin replied, giving Cam a bro-punch to the shoulder.

_Didn’t think he expected that_ , Shane to himself as he watched Cam restrain a wince, opting instead to bend down next to Tori’s bike.

“What’s up Cam?” Shane asked. “The Tsunami cycles were really good,” he added hurriedly.

“You know, Shane, you were pretty lucky,” Cam replied, not raising his head from where he knelt looking at the gear box. “They still need some fine-tuning. Especially you Tori,” Cam continued. “You took some pretty wild turns out there, not to mention that jump.”

“That only proves you are way too much of a perfectionist,” Tori said back, giving Shane a wink.

Shane chuckled quietly to himself. The seriousness of the Sensei’s son was something he and Tori had been talking about earlier in the week, because it hadn’t exactly escaped their notice that he was pretty much all alone, by himself, with his father in Ninja Ops all the time, and didn’t seem to like to go hangout with them at Storm Chargers.

 

[ _“That can’t be healthy,” Tori had said. “We’re going to have to work on getting him out of there sometime.”_

_“I’m down for that,” Shane had agreed_.]

 

“Dustin, here,” Cam said, his hand suddenly throwing up Dustin’s backpack.

“Hey, thanks man,” Dustin said. “Man, glad that didn’t get lost.”

“You know,” Cam went on, pulling out a CD from his pocket. “Since you’re the bike expert, why don’t you take a look at these specs and tell me what you think? The auto-jet systems in particular. But don’t play video games with it.”

“Dude!” protested Dustin. “I’m not a complete doofus!”

_And he’s a sucky video-game player,_ Shane thought to himself, remembering what happened the last time he and Dustin had tried to play Halo over winter break. They somehow had wound up freezing the game in mid-mission just as Dustin had went to fire the tank, which had frozen Shane’s X-box and forcing them to wait until the next day to play the latest Skate Pro game at Kelly’s in order to get any video game playing in at all.

“Well,” Cam was saying, “here’s your chance to prove it. I’ll see you guys at Ninja Ops,” he finished just before hopping back inside the mobile center, the door shutting behind him as he started to drive it forward.

“Okay, we really do need to get him out of that thing in the real world,” Tori said as the trio started to walk towards the edge of the forest. “Maybe we could get him to come out to the track with us, do some training?”

“That’d be so sick,” Dustin said, following her. “Hey, I could show our new bikes off as demo things to the new guys!”

“Wait, what new guys?” Shane asked, looking at the Yellow Ranger.

“Dude, so, this morning Kelly got me early to the track— almost had to Ninja streak down the stairs not to wake my folks, but it was _so_ worth it. Like, she even brought me breakfast.”

“Cool of her to take a break from checking books to buy you that,” Tori said.

“Right?” Dustin said. “Anyway, so we’re at the tracks, you know? And it’s packed—”

“Choice weather, choice treads, huh?” Shane said.

“Dude, duh, obviously, but so not the point, okay? The point, right, is that there I am, managing to get in a few rides, when these two guys come _out of nowhere_ and just, like, _take over_. I mean, I’ve never seen these guys before, Kelly hasn’t seen them—”

“ _Kelly_ hasn’t seen them?” Tori asked Shane, who shrugged.

“They rode like factory _pros_ , like, I’m _so_ glad they don’t race 125s, and then they came over! And talked! To me!”

“That is what guys at tracks tend to do man,” Shane pointed out.

Dustin shook his head. “No, I mean, okay, yeah, we talked a little about the track still being soggy from that downpour we got a couple days ago— not that it slowed them down any— but then, they, no, the older one-

“Older one? Dustin, wait, we need actual details,” Tori said.

“— were all like ‘yeah, we ride at Stone Canyon, you wouldn’t have heard of us,” Dustin continued, apparently not hearing what Tori said. “And I’m all like, wha?, then he was all ‘Man, you were pretty fast out there, before, you just get too much air on your jumps and it slows you down.’”

“Dude what’s his problem?” Shane asked.

Dustin shrugged. “I dunno. His younger brother was way friendly—”

“Oh, so they’re _brothers_ , glad we got _that_ cleared,” Tori teased.

“—and I wanted to hang out more, but then I had to go and I got Kelzacked,” Dustin wound down. “But the point was I bet they’d _love_ to see the bikes!”

“Dustin, they’re kinda like zords,” Tori pointed out. “They can’t see them.”

“No, they’re not,” Dustin protested. “Cam didn’t call them that.”

“I dunno dude, they’re definitely Ranger gear,” Shane said.

“How ‘bout we figure it out at Storm Chargers?” Tori said.

Dustin’s eyes widened. “Yeah! That’d be– Shane, dude, our _shifts_!”

 

 

_March 2, 2003, 2:41 PM_

Shane opened the door to Storm Chargers feeling annoyed. As things had wound down the day before he and Dustin had agreed to do some covert bike training on the beach with Tori— she said knew a spot they could do it without getting seen by anyone— but Dustin hadn’t showed up or answered his morpher. The only place he and Tori could figure he might’ve ignored his morpher was Storm Chargers, because they had agreed to try to avoid answering that in front of Kelly after their attempt at talking it yesterday had only wound up getting Kelly annoyed at them for “gossiping about Biker Rangers.”

_Glad we’ve gotten to know him so well_ , Shane thought as he and Tori walked in and found Dustin standing in front of the helmet display talking to two guys. The first one was short, with fine, black hair, tan skin, and a face that didn’t seem to have grown up anywhere near the California coastline— at least, his face wasn’t Hispanic, but it didn’t seem like any other ethnicity he knew. _Maybe something Asian?_ Shane thought as he got closer.

The second one though. The second one was tall and blond, with a skin that probably wasn’t as fair as the black motocross overalls he had on made it look. His jaw was square and his eyes were- _okay, those are…intense,_ Shane thought as he tried to look into the guy’s face, seeing a look that was as inscrutable as Sensei’s (pre-guinea pig) and with eyes that stormed in an uncool way.

“You guys,” Dustin was saying. “You guys get to meet! Shane, Tori– Blake, Hunter. These are the riders I was telling you about yesterday. The brothers. Adopted, obviously, well maybe not _obviously_ obviously— Blake’s the younger of the two—”

“Hi, I’m Blake,” said the shorter of the two, offering his hand to Shane before the silence that had begun to set as Dustin babbled could grow awkward. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

“Hi, how’s it going?” Shane said, shaking it slowly before letting go so Tori could shake his hand.

“Dustin’s told us a lot about you,” offered the blond one.

_So_ _that one’s Hunter_ , Shane thought to himself. _Good name._

“Not everything though,” Blake said as he gazed admiringly at Tori.

Shane tried not to look to see if Tori had been smiling back. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said instead, reaching out to shake Hunter’s hand.

Hunter’s grip was firm, as if it was more used to curling around a bike handle than another person.

Shane held it for a moment, watching as Hunter looked at Shane thoughtfully before letting go, just in time to see Tori shake Blake’s hand with, yes, the same grin on her face that she had when the whole Dill thing had gone down. Not that Shane could blame her. He’d probably do the same if someone was looking at him with that trace of a smile the way Blake was looking at her.

Shane flicked his eyes back and saw that Hunter was still staring at him intently, and Shane felt himself try to keep his face neutral.

_I don’t know what it is about that guy,_ he thought, _but…_

“Dustin!” Kelly suddenly shouted from behind the register. “I found what you were looking for!”

“Great!” Dustin said, before pulling Blake and Hunter after him. “C’mon, you gotta see this—”

“You know, I’m not against Dustin hanging out with other people,” Shane muttered once the trio had gone out of earshot, “but he definitely needs to pick better company if he’s going to ditch us that easily, right Tor? Tor?”

Turning around, Shane saw that Tor had gone outside, resting easily against her white van that she’d parked just to the left of Storm Chargers. _Hope she’s alright,_ Shane thought as he walked outside, noticing that Tori barely moved as he approached. “Hey, Tor?” he asked, holding his arms up in the universal symbol for “I come in peace.”

“I didn’t hear you,” she said blankly.

“I figured,” Shane added, putting his arms down and coming to lean against the van beside her. “You okay? You kind of just ran out after shaking Blake’s hand.”

“No I’m-I’m good,” she said shrugging. “Just wanted to breathe some fresh air.”

“Blake didn’t _do_ anything, did he? What, I saw how he looked at you,” he added when he saw Tori stare at him. “And I saw how you looked back.”

“No, no I didn’t—”

“You were blushing, you know. It’s kinda obvious.”

Tori sighed. “It was, huh?”

“Yeah. Between Dill and him, you’re definitely getting a lot of attention.”

“Well the Dill thing was a bust—”

“Sorry to hear that—“

“And I’m not sure I want this one either to be honest,” Tori said. “There’s something off with those two.”

“They’re…intense, aren’t they,” Shane said, thinking of how Hunter had looked at him. “We’ll probably have to warn Dustin about them. Or at least, keep an eye out.”

“Don’t you always do that, oh falcon one?”

“Ha-ha. Like I haven’t heard that one before, oh dolphin one.”

“You’re not denying it.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I’ll be inside, when you feel up for joining in.”

“Thanks Shane.”

Shane smiled. “Anytime Tor,” he said, turning around and heading in.

”—so yeah, meet up at the track,” Dustin was saying.

“Sounds good,” Blake replied, stepping a little closer to Dustin as he spoke.

And suddenly Shane felt himself wanting to get some space between them.

“Hey Dustin,” Shane called. “Can I see you a sec?”

“Ah sure?” Dustin said. The Yellow Ranger walked over to him, and Shane noticed as he did how Blake and Hunter turned their own attention away to a back corner of shirts in a coordinated move, as if the two of them had just been waiting for Dustin to leave them alone so they could shop. “What’s up?”

“So, ah, Sensei called while I was out there,” Shane whispered quietly, knowing as he spoke that he was probably right, even though he and Tori hadn’t called to check. “He’s not happy about you missing training with us this morning.”

“Seriously?”

“He’s doing that thing with his nose.”

“Argh,” Dustin whined. “I hate the nose thing!”

“If you don’t want to streak, Tori’s out back. She’d probably drive you over to Ops if you ask nicely,” Shane said. “I’ll cover with you for those too.”

“Ah, thanks bro,” Dustin said, giving Shane a quick one-armed hug before running out.

Shane smiled to himself. _Let’s find out who these people really are_ , he thought as he headed towards Blake and Hunter.

“—that Tori is fine,” Blake was saying.

“Yeah,” Hunter said, “but question is, why does she hang out with a goof like Dustin?”

“Who knows? maybe she likes doing charity work,” Blake said, making the other man laugh, and Shane felt himself prickling at the idea of anybody but him and Tori trying to make fun of Dustin. _Dustin may be a flake, but only Tori and me get to call him that,_ Shane thought, glaring at the shorter man.

And apparently at his brother, as Hunter once again turned his head to stare right at him.

“What?” Hunter asked, sounding almost defensive to Shane.

“Nothing,” Shane shrugged. “Just wanted to let you know Dustin had to run out for a bit. Anything I can help with you though?”

“We’re thinking of getting a couple of these,” Blake said, lifting a couple of shirts off the rack. “You know where we can try them on?”

“Fitting room’s over there,” Shane said, gesturing behind them.

“Thanks,” Blake said, walking off.

Hunter started following after him, but stopped. “Not a man of many words, are you Shane?

“I prefer action,” Shane said, smirking. “It speaks louder.”

Hunter nodded. “Same here,” he said as he grinned back, and for a brief moment Shane found himself wondering if maybe the two of them could get along.

“Well, see you later,” Hunter said suddenly, his smile fading away as he walked off.

“Later,” Shane called after him.

_Don’t know who you are,_ Shane thought as he watched him walk way. _But I’m going to find out._


	7. Chapter IV: Down in a Cloud Machine

_“I grew up with a younger brother, so I can get pretty rowdy.”_

  * Sarah Wynter



 

 

_March 7, 2003, 1:00 PM_

Hunter looked down into the quarry, Blake standing next to him. The brothers stood morphed in the darkly-colored Crimson and Navy uniforms that they had come to know were those worn by Power Rangers, of all people, waiting for the Wind Ninjas to walk into their trap.

Which, strictly speaking, they had, but they had been wandering around aimlessly for three minutes debating whether there was something lurking in the quarry sand or in the rock walls that was worth looking for.

“Not that impressive are they,” Blake said to his brother softly.

Hunter snorted. “They’re definitely not bright if they can’t figure out that they should be looking up.”

“Harsh.”

“But true,” Hunter replied, making his brother chuckle. Weeks of monitoring the Wind Rangers had shown them to be exactly what they’d heard: strong, vicious fighters, capable of going to acting under extreme pressure and pulling out advantages out of thin air. The kind of people you’d never want to cross.

If that’s all they had seen, Hunter might’ve felt a bit more than just impatient waiting for the chance to fight them. But it wasn’t. Instead, he and Blake seen them out of suit too, and that- that wasn’t as impressive a sight. It had been _weeks_ of hearing “dude,” “bro,” “what?”, “awesome,” “righteous,” “bogus,” and enough sport slang that Hunter had almost considered giving up biking for a bit just so he could hang around people adult enough to speak in complete, multi-word sentences and save himself from losing a few IQ points in the process.

Even their constant sporting hadn’t been that great. Dustin was fast on a bike, sure, but he had a sloppy, free-styling technique, the kind Hunter and Blake had long drilled out of themselves. The Blue, Tori, knew how to ride a board, and seemed to be vaguely emotionally mature enough to handle being a pro-surfer, but her choice in friends said otherwise because who willingly hangs out with _skateboarders_?

The only one who Hunter had any question about was the Red, Shane, and that was mostly because Hunter still hadn’t managed to see him actually skate, but he wasn’t exactly holding his breath since Dustin seemed to be the only one praising him about it.

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” Blake teased.

“Oh shut up,” Hunter said. “Come on, let’s get this over with.” Grabbing his weapon, Hunter jumped down into the valley with Blake, the two of them landing in a burst of fire and electricity, throwing the Wind Rangers back.

“Who are you?” the Red Ranger yelled at them.

 _Seriously?_ Hunter thought to himself. _What do we look like?_

“What’s with the attitude?” the Blue Ranger shouted.

“Hello?” The Yellow Ranger shouted after her. “Anybody home?”                 “Obviously, you didn’t get the memo,” Hunter growled at the Wind Rangers, hoping that the suit would mask his voice enough that Dustin— who had spent a good part of the past week talking with them— wouldn’t be able to place his voice.

“Old Rangers out,” added Blake after a moment, “new Rangers in.”

“What, you expect us to fight _you_?” the Yellow Ranger asked.

 _Well, now that you mention it_ , Hunter thought, shifting into the form for shadow sparring, Blake following soon after. The Wind Rangers literally didn’t see them coming, and were soon on the ground, far away from where Blake and Hunter had come to a rest.

“Doesn’t look like they want to talk,” he heard Dustin say, making Hunter snicker softly.

“I go for kicking their wannabe butts!” added the Blue.

“I hear ya!”

“Hey!” the Red Ranger shouted at them. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to play nice?”

 _Oh, bad call there Red,_ Hunter thought as he watched his younger brother tense up.

“We don’t do nice,” growled Blake, moving to double-kick the Red Ranger’s chest, the hit strong enough to drill the Red Ranger into the quarry wall.

Hunter would’ve stopped to watch the fight a bit more— he always appreciated his younger brother’s work—but it was at that moment that the other two Rangers threw themselves at him, their ninja swords drawn. They weren’t much of a challenge: the Wind ninjas must not have been working as closely together as he and Blake had, and it showed. Hunter had just started working up a sweat when they swapped out with the Red Ranger, who had hurled himself at him.

 _Fine, have it your way_ , Hunter thought to himself as he reached for the staff on his back.

The resulting explosion from that staff, and from Blake joining him in the attack, soon had the Wind Rangers on the ground again, the force of the blast knocking the swords out of Red and Blue’s hands as they fell.

“They have sticks,” the Red Ranger said.

“Really big sticks,” the Blue added.

 _That’s what she said,_ Hunter thought to himself before feeling himself actually spend energy to stopping himself from muttering it aloud. _Oh great, I_ must _be spending way too much time around them if I’m starting to_ talk _like them_.

“Anybody have any ideas?” Hunter heard Dustin call.

“You want an idea?” Hunter answered. “How about giving up?”

“Trust us,” Blake added. “It would be much less painful.”

“Never,” the Red Ranger shouted, and for a brief second Hunter remembered the first time he’d met Shane, how he’d had looked and smirked at Hunter, telling him he preferred action. It had to be the lamest pun an extreme sports store worker could possibly make, especially if they worked at a pathetic beach sports shop named something like Storm Chargers, a name Hunter found personally offensive given that he and Blake were, would’ve been proper Thunder Ninjas if- if-

“Alright, you ready?” he asked Blake as he folded up his staff.

“Yeah,” Blake added, and not for the first time Hunter found himself grateful that Blake would just _go_ with him. Together they brought forward their right hands, the gesture summoning forth their own versions of the motorcycles that had been on the CD Blake had managed to take out of Dustin’s backpack the last time they were at the track together.

“Cam, you got us,” he could hear Tori laughing, only to be answered by Dustin shouting “guys, I think this is for real!”

“You’re gonna wish we weren’t real,” Hunter said as he and Blake charged.

And it was effective: the Rangers were knocked over as fast as Kelzacks under a ninja blade.

 

 

_March 7, 2003, 1:13 PM_

“That was anticlimactic,” Blake growled from where he and Hunter stood on the edges of the quarry. They had streaked away after the Rangers had been defeated, only to come back in order to get beamed up to Lothor’s— and how Hunter couldn’t _wait_ to get off that evil space ninja ship, it was claustrophobic and unnaturally purple.

“I want—”

“I know,” Hunter said. “But don’t worry, our day is coming. Besides,” he added, “it’s not like we didn’t make our point.”

“Yeah,” Blake said.

For a moment the Thunder Rangers just stood in the quarry, looking around at the rock walls as they caught their breath.

“So,” Blake said at last, “do you want head back to Lothor’s ship now, or…?”

“No one ever wants to go back to that thing ship. Why, you got a better place to be?”

“Yeah,” Blake said.

“Really?” Hunter asked, surprised.

Blake shrugged. “I have a date.”

“What?” Hunter said, de-morphing so he could look more clearly at his brother. “When? And with who?”

“In like a couple hours,” Blake said as he also de-morphed. “And with Tori.”

“Tori?”

“Yes.”

“Tori like Wind Blue Ranger Tori?”

“That’s the one.”

“Blue Ranger whose butt we just kicked Tori.”

“I mean, you did that way more than I did,” Blake pointed out.

“You’re- seriously?!” Hunter shouted. “You can’t just _date the enemy_.”

“Why not?” Blake said. “It’s not like there’s some code of ethics thing for what we’re doing.”

“You think Tori’s still going to go out with you when she discovers that we just—”

“I think I can swing one date bro,” Blake said.

“Oh come on, we’re off the track! Don’t start picking up on the slang too!”

“You’re just whining because you don’t think you can date her boys. And don’t try to play that ‘ix-nay about my love life, Blake, no one needs to know about my man-loving habits,’” Blake continued. “We’re down here by ourselves, and you know it, so there’s no one to shame you about wanting to—”

“Look, I’m not saying they’re _unattractive_ ,” Hunter interrupted. “I understand the aesthetic appeal—”

“Do you?” Blake asked. “Do you _really_?”

“—but we’re kidnapping their sensei and kicking their primary-colored butts,” Hunter finished. “I don’t see much point in trying to date them. That’s- that’s like naming the turkey at Thanksgiving.”

“…What if they’ve got nice wavy hair you can run your fingers through and eyes that you can drown in?” Blake said softly.

“Even if they’ve got that and sun-kissed skin and deep, chocolatey eyes that you just…you know,” Hunter finished lamely, making his little brother look at him.

“You totally can’t say that and mean it, can you,” Blake asked flatly.

Hunter groaned, and was about to respond when Blake’s cell phone rang.

“One sec,” Blake said, holding up a finger as he answered the phone. “Hello? Oh hey Tori.”

“Unbelievable,” Hunter muttered to himself. “Just, unbelievable.”

“What’s up with you?” Blake continued. ‘I- I mean, yeah, I’m doing good, just hanging out with Hunter. He says hi by the way,” the comment making Hunter want to smack his forehead into the quarry wall.

“Hi and bye, you mean,” Hunter grumbled instead, watching as his little brother’s eyes grew comically wide.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that!” Blake was saying. “Yeah, no, I totally understand. Yeah? Awesome. Yeah, okay, I’ll see you,” Blake said as he hung up.

“Trouble in Paradise?”

“Apparently Dustin got in a bike accident and needs her to help him out tonight. Oh come on, it’s not that funny,” Blake grumbled as he watched his older brother break out laughing.

“You just blocked yourself from a date!” Hunter wheezed out. “This is _hilarious_.”

“Yeah, yeah. Might just go and see her tomorrow at the beach before we head to the track.”

“You’d have to cross the entire town,” Hunter said. “Is that actually worth it?”

“To see her in that wetsuit?” Black smirked. “Totally.”

“Oh, there you are!” a voice suddenly said. “Hey, if you’re ready to beam aboard, let me know!”

Hunter sighed. “We’re both ready Marah,” he muttered into his helmet, and tried not to wince as he saw Blake get pulled into the beam that would take them back to Lothor’s ship.

 

 

_March 9, 2003 3:45 PM_

“—maybe their master illusionists, like that guy who can make a tank disappear on TV? That would be cool,” Dustin was telling Shane as Hunter walked up the hill at local motorbike track (which, Hunter had to admit, was actually a pretty good course) towards the Storm Chargers trailer.

 _I can’t believe he thinks we’re stars on the Masked Magician,_ Hunter thought. _Like TV stars are going to be Power Rangers._

“Hey,” he called out to them, watching as the pair looked away from the bike they were working on. “Have you guys seen Blake?”

“Gee that’s the second time today he’s just disappeared,” Shane said Dustin.

“Yeah…hey, maybe you should ask Tori?” Dustin offered. “She should be getting here from Blue Bay anytime now. And we’ll keep an eye out for him.”

“Thanks,” Hunter confirmed, starting to turn away. “I’ll try the parking lot then.”

“Hey Hunter!” Shane called after him.

Hunter stopped. “Yeah?”

Shane grinned. “Like the shirt,” he said. “Totally rad.”

Hunter looked down and saw that in his haste to get out of the moto-clothes he’d worn for his own ride he’d thrown on one of the shirts he and Blake had bought at Storm Chargers to give them cover the day they’d visited it: a black t-shirt with a red hawk artistically tagged on it.

 _Of course he’d notice._ “Thanks, I think so too,” Hunter said aloud before turning back to run down the hill.

 _“_ Now isn’t the time to think about why you’re wearing Shane’s zord,” Hunter muttered to himself as he went. He’d barely made it to the parking lot when he a white van he recognized belonged to the Blue Ranger drive right into it.

 _He’d better be in there,_ Hunter thought as he jogged towards the van, recognizing the Ranger herself behind the driver wheel as he got closer. _Because if anything happened to him_ — “Blake,” he shouted, grabbing at the passenger door when he got there.

Blake looked at him for a moment before slowly getting out of the van.

Hunter pulled him into a tight hug for a few seconds— _he’s alive, he’s okay_ — before letting go. “What happened?” he asked, glancing at the Blue Ranger still seated behind them in the van. “You look—”

“See, I told you he’d be this way.” Blake said to the Blue Ranger, who looked back at him with a look Hunter was willing to pretend was only charitable. “Easy bro, I’m alright, just a little dehydrated.”

“You sure?”

“Tori took good care of me.”

“Yeah?” Hunter asked as he glanced at her.

“Yeah, bro, really,” Blake confirmed, shifting to look Hunter in the eye. “It’s a long story, but I would’ve been in a real fix if not for her.”

Hunter thought about that for a few seconds. _I guess these Rangers aren’t totally evil then. Just…mostly. “_ Thanks for taking care of saving bro,” he said at last, offering his hand to the Blue Ranger (and totally ignoring the look of pride on Blake’s face.) “We owe you one, and we always repay our debts.”

“Anytime,” she replied, shaking his hand, “and honestly? I hope you’ll _never_ have to repay this.”

“Isn’t she something?” Blake said as they watched her drive away.

“She’s something,” Hunter said. “But seriously, what happened?”

Blake shrugged. “I showed up at the beach to watch her and wound up getting hit by Lothor’s latest attempt at an enemy combatant,” he said simply.

“What.”

“Yeah, some giant frog named Amphiabiator.”

“Man, we _really_ need a better place to live,” Hunter said after a moment. “Our landlord sucks.”

“Yeah, who knew an evil alien ninja spaceship had such bad people on it?” Blake said flatly. “Anyway, she took me to their base, got me patched up, and—”

“Wait, you got in?” Hunter said suddenly.

“No, just outside the waterfall covering the entryway, but I’m pretty sure we can find the way to their command center from there.”

“You know what means?”

Blake sighed. “You want to go in and kidnap the sensei don’t you.”

“Obviously!”

“Bit ahead of schedule isn’t it.”

Hunter stared at his little brother “Are you seriously trying to stall for her?”

“What, no!”

“Do I need to remind you—?”

“No, no you don’t,” Blake said. “Though I’ll point out I’m not the one wearing one of my crushes Zord billboard-style on my chest. I just…we _do_ owe them something, you know?”

Hunter sighed. “Alright, fine, how about this,” he told his little brother, choosing to ignore the comment about his shirt. “We take out Amphibiator. Then, we go kidnap Sensei Hamster Claws.”

“Lothor’ll probably just bring him back.”

“Their zords can take care of that,” Hunter said, wondering how long it would take for what sounded like a giant-frog monster to attack the Wind Rangers.

The answer, it turned out, was about an hour.

Blake and Hunter had just managed to get in one of the shorter bike sessions they’d had in a long time when their Wind Ranger alarm went off. Hurrying to stash their bikes and morph, they had managed to arrive just in time to see— _yep, that’s a frog monster_ , Hunter realized— run up and body slam the three Wind Rangers into the ground.

“Like fighting a giant frog wasn’t bad enough,” Hunter heard the Red Ranger say.

 _You are so lucky my little brother likes your Blue,_ Hunter thought to himself as he and Blake ran past the Wind Rangers and at the monster, or _I would’ve killed you all just on purpose for making me have to fight this thing in the first place._

“I thought we were on the same team!” the monster whined.

“He obviously didn’t think so when he went after me,” Blake muttered into their helmets private communication line, striking just as Hunter did, the combined force sending the monster backwards.

“I guess not,” the monster was saying. “Polytrons.”

“What?” Hunter muttered as what looked like robo-polywogs flew at him, prompting him to raise his staff with Blake to create an electronic shield.

“Hey, look on the bright-side,” Blake replied as the baby frogs dropped off the ground to the shield, electrocuted. “At least they’re small and obnoxious. We could do this all day!”

“You know what, no,” Hunter said. “I’m done with this.” Moving quickly over the ground towards the monster, Hunter moved the frog into position, before reaching down and drawing a blaster from his belt, his shot joined by Blake firing his own blaster. The energy of the two pulses combined was enough to shatter the frog in its place.

 _So much for that,_ Hunter thought as he stood, gesturing to Blake to follow him as they walked away.

“Hey,” Hunter heard the Red Ranger shout from behind him. “What’s up with you guys?”

“Hello,” Dustin said soon after. “Anybody in there?”

Blake stopped, the sudden motion stopping Hunter as well, and for a brief moment the brothers looked at each other.

Hunter already knew what Blake wanted him to say. Blake wanted him to look at the Rangers and tell them that they were here to avenge their parents’ death, that no matter what the Wind Rangers did they would have that vengeance, but that it also meant if they were going to be defeated at anyone’s hands it would be theirs. Blake wanted him to tell Tori thank you for saving his life, even though it made no sense given who they were and that they would shortly be Sensei-less as a result.

Blake sighed, as if he knew what the odds of Hunter saying that had been, and started walking again.

 _Well, no harm in clearing the air at least a little,_ Hunter thought. “We’re even now Rangers,” he said to the Rangers, before turning again and joining his brother to ninja streak away.

As they left, Hunter could hear the Blue Ranger ask if maybe they were the strong, silent types.

 


	8. Chapter V: The Sand Slips Out

_“The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.”_

  * Tavis Smiley



 

 

_March 9, 2003, 4:30 PM_

Cam was not having a good day.

“Cam!” a voice shouted.

With effort Cam tried to move to look at the voice, only to have a blur of faces over his head.

“Okay. Let’s move him away from the glass,” said another voice.

“Don’t,” a third voice said back. “Whoever did this, they tossed Cam against the monitors and dude, he’s not wearing a helmet. We can’t move him without making sure he doesn’t have a-a spine injury or something.”

“What do you think we should do?” the second voice asked.

“Me and Tori’ll figure that out,” the third voice said. “Dustin, you try to bring up Cam’s security cameras. We need to see what happened here.”

“Dude, it’s Cam. I don’t know-”

“Bro, if he figured you could handle the Cycle blueprints, you can handle the cameras. Come on Tor, let’s get him out of this glass.”

_That third voice needs to chill_ , Cam thought. _Besides, it’s just a security feed, not like it’s hard to look at. Wow my head hurts. Oh, hey I’m moving,_ his mind went on, this last thought accompanied by a general sensation of being moved and placed down again, only this time his head as on something soft. _That’s much better_.

“Got it,” the second voice— _Dustin? That one must be Dustin_ — said. “I’ve got the feed from the two cameras in this room. Ready to watch it?”

“We’re ready when you are,” the first voice replied.

“Alright, well, here we go: time to rewind and review.”

There was a pause, and for a few seconds Cam thought he was alone again, before he heard the voices again:

“I knew there had to be a trick!”

“Dude, no way!”

And as much effort as Cam had spent just trying to keep up, the shouting seemed to do the trick in waking him. Not just in waking him, but in making Cam remember.

“I take it you hacked into the security feed,” Cam said aloud. “Obvious in retrospect, huh?”

“What’s obvious?” the first voice, that Cam could now see was Tori, said as she knelt beside him.

“Come and see,” was the response which came the third voice, easily recognizable as belonging to Shane, who was standing behind the chair in front of the Ninja Ops monitor that Cam normally occupied, a chair that was currently holding Dustin in it.

As Tori helped Cam to stand up and walk over to review the clip— something Cam really didn’t need to do, as he had lived it, but which he suspected was meant more as the Blue Ranger’s way of keeping an eye on him while getting informed— Cam quickly glanced around the room.

It was obvious that something had happened at the center. Their main table had been thrown onto the floor, and there was broken glass all over the floor. Even the cart that his fa-his- Sensei Watanabe normally loved and moved on had been thrown, bent, and charred.

_Dad_ , Cam thought slowly as they reached the console, Dustin standing up to make room for him to sit down. Cam pressed a button, and the tape continued.

Cam couldn’t watch it. Didn’t want to watch it really, but thankfully years of being the only person running computer technology services for an entire Ninja Academy and the child of a ninja master meant that he could keep a soft focus with pinpoint accuracy and little energy spent.

“Blake?” he heard Tori whisper. “It can’t be.”

“Sorry, Tor.”

The words were followed by a flash of light on the screen, and Cam quickly pressed the key again to freeze the image. “My father,” he said, marveling silently at how calm he sounded as he spoke to the three Wind Ranger ninjas-in-training. “They took my father.”

 

***

_That was how things should’ve gone,_ Cam thought as he listened to the Rangers confront Hunter and Blake in the (not at all) demolished Ninja Ops, Hunters’ hands still holding Cam hostage. _It would’ve made this seem a lot more…impressive._

The truth was Cam had been watching the monitors when the Thunder Rangers had appeared in twin bolts of lightning, quickly capturing his father— who had instinctively thrown up a protective shield, the frosted orb surrounding him before they could grab him— and pulling him into a side room before Cam could have reacted. Cam had gotten up from the chair a moment later only to be grabbed by the two, who had held him there in silence for what had been the longest ten minutes of his life before the sounds of the Wind Ninja Rangers arriving from combat had drawn them out and caused them to de-morph to reveal Hunter and Bradley.

“I’m sorry,” Blake was saying, “we had to find where the Rangers were operating from. I didn’t mean to use you.”

“If you hurt him,” Tori threatened, her voice shaking with furious tears, “I will hunt. you. down.”

_Great, the fate of the entire Academy now rests on two teenaged Power Ranger ninjas having_ feelings _for each other,_ Cam thought to himself. The thought had barely finished before Hunter was throwing him to floor, the impact causing Cam to miss most of what Hunter said. _Ugh, did he seriously wish us good luck?_

“Cam, are you okay?” Dustin asked.

“They took my father,” Cam said aloud as Shane helped him up and over to his desk, where Cam started to type the passwords that would project the log of what happened onto the Ninja Ops display screen.

“I knew there was something bad about Blake and Hunter,” Shane was saying.

“Dude, I know, you don’t need to say I told you so,” Dustin was replying.

“The protective shield,” Cam muttered, “I should be able to trace it, so long as— there, that’s them. My father encased himself in an energy sphere before they took him,” he explained to the others, pointing at a blinking orange dot near the edge of the map now showing on the screen. “It’ll let us track him anywhere within 25 miles, but they’re almost out of range. I’ll lose them at 25 miles. I- I don’t know what to do!”

_I don’t know what to do_ , Cam thought as silence fell upon the group from where they stood. It was an honest thought, Cam realized. He’d tried fighting and that- that hadn’t been enough.

“He can’t transform or use is ninja powers, can he,” Shane said at last.

“Not as long as he’s in the orb.”

“Where do you think they’re taking him?” Dustin asked.

“The Mountain of Souls,” Tori answered. “It houses the ghosts of dead evil ninja spirits, and it also houses the Gem of Souls which is the only thing on earth that’s powerful enough to break the energy sphere on sensei.”

“So you do study Ninja history,” Cam said into the silence that followed. “I wondered.”

“Well yeah, sometimes,” Dustin said. “I mean, just because we were late getting to practice a few times doesn’t mean we just _blow off_ homework, you know.”

“But Tori’s right,” Cam continued. “That must be what the Thunders are after.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” Shane’s voice said, softly but surely, as the Red rested a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “We’re going after them.”

“You have my sword dude,” Dustin added. “And my hammer.”

“Dustin,” Shane said.

“What? I can totally dual wield!”

Tori rolled her eyes. “Guess we’re going to Mount Doom then,” she said, turning towards the front of Ninja ops.

_Rangers_ , Cam thought to himself as the trio began to move, to gather everything (including Cam himself) and placing them into the mobile command center, Dustin shoving him out of the driver seat as they went. _Give them a broken-into command center, a kidnapped mentor, a beaten up…whatever I am, and do they take a second to think that maybe this is out of their league?_

_No. No, instead, they decide to take the “vengeance will be mine” route._

_Dad would probably be very disappointed in them. Then again,_ Cam thought on as Dustin drove, distantly aware of Shane and Tori discussing something in the back of the trailer truck as he watched the tracker on the navigation monitor, _Dad’s not here_. I _am. And I- I am very okay with this plan._

_Oh Dimitria, they’re beginning to rub off on me._

“How long till we get there?” Dustin asked after a half hour of driving.

Cam looked up from the navigation monitor. “I told you to go before we left Ninja Ops.”

“No, I just- I’m _freaking_ here,” he admitted.

“Makes sense,” said Shane from the back. “Nothing says things are going to go our way like two evil ninjas taking a kidnapped hamster—”

“Guinea Pig!” Dustin and Tori shouted.

“— _guinea pig_ ,” Shane corrected, “into an accursed, middle-of-nowhere mountain and bombarding him with a heavily weaponized rock.”

“Could be worse,” Dustin replied. “It could be two rocks.”

Cam felt a small smile growing on his face as he listened to the rangers joke with each other, the commentary reminding him of (admittedly only _slightly_ ) calmer days. “This is as far as we go,” he said aloud, looking at the woods growing around them. “The truck can go a little more, but the Cycles would be faster, and once they get close enough to the mountain the tracker wouldn’t be able to pick them up anyhow, so you’d better get off here.”

“Right,” Shane said, prompting him and Tori to clean up the back while Dustin pulled off to the side of the road to park. Cam watched them morph, opening the back of the truck to watch them head out. “Please find my father,” he told them.

Shane nodded. “We will,” he said, and Cam watched as the three rode the Tsunami cycles off into the woods.

“I’ll just…wait here,” Cam said to the empty air, before slowly climbing up onto the back of the open mobile center, sitting on the floor near where Tori and Shane had been sitting after closing the back door behind him. And for a brief moment Cam enjoyed the silence, the feel of being completely safe and (mostly) unhurt in a small center far from any distractions.

But then Cam felt himself starting to twitch, and then to shake, and then before he completely knew what was happening he heard- felt- a heavy clawing, gasping sound escape from his throat, and tears started to stream from his eyes. Felt his body as it began to curl up, and knew that it somehow had finally begun to hit him what had happened, the shock of having his home- his _home_ \- broken into for a second time and his father stolen.

_Breathe_ , Cam thought. _Breathe_.

Breathing, Cam knew, would be the first step to calming himself down, at least to being able to start to process the thoughts and facts and feelings of it without causing his body pain from being wracked with nerves and—

_[“But- but- daaad,” Cam remembered insisting to his father when he was eight years old, “I wanna be a ninja!”_

_“You’re still too young to start training son,” Sensei Watanabe had answered from where he sat at his desk, his pen moving in the strokes little Cam recognized as him writing a letter._

_“Sensei Oromino’s sons started and Blake’s littler than I am.”_

_“Sensei Oromino runs things very differently at the Thunder Academy than we do, and even then, I’m told his sons are a special case.”_

_“Still, there’s gotta be something I can learn,” eight-year-old Cam had pouted._

_“I suppose you’re old enough to begin learning the kuji-kiri,” his father had replied._

_“Kuji-wha?”_

_“Kuji-kiri,” Sensei Watanabe had repeated. “They’re hand gestures, meant to help you see the truth when life seems to desire to conceal it from you.”_

_“Oh.”_

_“Here, let’s begin,” his father had said, rising from his desk to walk around it and sit with his son on the floor, taking Cam’s hands into his.”]_

Slowly, Cam tried to force his hands to go through the gestures, remembering how his father had helped him to bend his fingers and place fingertips in just the right way. The first three times were hard, but on the fourth they began to move swiftly, and by the sixth time Cam’s breathing had evened out and his hands were moving quickly.

“Okay,” Cam said aloud, his voice barely whispering in the otherwise stillness of the center. “I’m alright. The Rangers are alright. Dad will be alright—”

At that moment the monitor began to beep. Cam quickly looked up at the screen to see it flicker on from the standby it had fallen into when Dustin had parked the mobile command center, the monitor showing the Wind Rangers standing in the mountain’s shadow before—

“Guys!” Cam shouted, knowing the Rangers could hear him, watching as the Thunder Rangers began to streak. “They’re getting away!”

Cam watched as Shane and Tori began to speak, Shane saying something to Dustin— _I’ve really got to update this thing’s sound connection to the comms_ , Cam thought idly— before hearing Tori say, “Cam, what about those zords?”

“On their way Tori,” Cam said, calling for the zords to arrive at the Mountain so that Tori could pilot them against— “is that an _alien zord_? Well, this day just keeps getting better,” Cam muttered to himself as he watched Dustin and Shane streak away.

And as he watched Tori pilot the Wind Megazord, falling under the spear of said alien zord’s hand, Cam found himself desperately looking around the mobile command center to see how he could help, his fingers fluttering through the kuji-kiri gestures rapidly, absently.

_Please bring back my father. Please bring back my father_ , he thought.

But before he could do anything, Cam’s eyes caught the monitor just in time to see Tori force Dustin’s Lion Zord into one last attack— and it _worked_. “What? How? the zords don’t repair—” Cam stammered, but found himself delighted as he watched Tori fight off and defeat it, and when he looked at the feed next to the one displaying Tori, he saw Shane and Dustin fighting with Hunter and Blake, almost managing to get his father.

“Come on, come on,” he urged, watching as the Wind and Thunder Rangers ran into the Mountain of Souls.

Cam sighed. “Alright,” he said to the center, whose monitor had gone silent again. “Now you’re really out of my range guys. Good luck.”

 

 

_March 9, 2003, 7:30 PM_

“And so,” Cam would later hear his father conclude, “Hunter and Blake have gone to consider what they have done, and it falls to you, my son, to dispose of what is left of the Gem.”

Cam looked at his father. The return from the Mountain had been a raucous trip, filled with overly happy Rangers and a very tired Sensei trying to reassure his son that he was quite alright. The hours after it had found Cam spending most of his trying to sweep through and confirm that Ninja Ops was clean and undamaged enough for Cam and his father to move around in it, an effort that the Rangers had briefly helped with before hurrying back home to their own families. It was only after everyone had left that Cam’s father told him what had happened in the Mountain, an account that had helped Cam to realize Hunter and Blake were _that_ Hunter and Blake he had been so envious of when he was little, and how much Cam was glad that the Rangers (and his father) were in his life.

It was a realization his father quickly seized on to ask Cam for a favor, the first that Cam could remember his father asking him for, and which had seen them carefully drive back past the Mountain of Souls to the rocky shores of North Blue bay Harbor.

“Are you sure about this though?” Cam asked, playing with the shards of the Gem in his hand as he sat looking at the sea from a large boulder.

“The Gem of Souls is dangerous Cam,” Sensei Watanabe repeated from where he stood below Cam on a smaller rock. “In the wrong hands it could bring harm to countless innocent people.”

“Alright then,” Cam said, and hurled the gem into the sea, where it sank quietly down below the waters.

“The Gem has taught the Thunder Rangers that revenge is not the answer,” Cam’s father said.

“He’s not through with us though, is he.”

“Lothor? No, far from it I fear.”

“Dad…”

“Yes Cam?”

“Do you remember when I was eight years old, and I asked for ninja training?”

“Of course,” Sensei Watanabe said. “That was the day I began to teach you kuji-kiri.”

“I’m not eight anymore.”

“I know.”

“And I-I’m tired of sitting around, doing nothing, watching the others fight.”

“Cam—”

“Dad, I can help,” Cam insisted. “I grew up in a _ninja_ _academy_ , I _know_ stuff, and yeah, there’s a lot that the other Rangers don’t know about me, but—”

“Cameron—”

“I _know_ I could help them, and not just behind the Ninja Ops desk, I mean I have nothing against Shane or Dustin or Tori, they’ve come a long way—”

“Cameron, you could be the most powerful ranger there ever was.”

“I— then why didn’t you _choose me_?” Cam asked once he’d processed his father’s response.

“Because I promised your mother,” Sensei Watanabe replied.

“What.”

“Before your mother- when she…fell ill, I swore to her that I’d protect you from harm. She knew only too well that a ninja’s life is full for constant danger.”

“You made that promise when I was a helpless child,” Cam replied. “Mother would-would’ve wanted this for me, to fulfill my potential as a ninja and as—”

“We will never know,” Cam’s father interrupted. “Unfortunately.”

Cam huffed, the sound almost lost by the sound of the waves crashing into the rocks. “How old do you have to be to do whatever you want?” he grumbled.

“No one lives to be that old Cam,” his father replied. “And let me remind you that I’m a ninja master and your father, which will not be a good combination for you if you try to pull a fast one.”

“So no sneaking out and fighting Kelzacks?”

“No.”

“Even if—”

Sensei Watanabe sighed. “Son, I always knew this day would come,” he said. “It’s in your blood.”

“But?”

“But there are other ways of training, growing than the one used by ninjas,” Cam’s father said. “You’ll just have to find one.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Cam said back to him as the pair gazed at the ocean. “I’ll find a way.”


	9. Part II: Crimson and Clover




	10. Chapter VI: The Ocean Meets the Sky

_“You cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”_

  * John Kabat-Zinn



 

 

_March 9, 2003, 12:30 PM_

Tori sat on her board exhausted. “This is exactly what I needed,” she said, letting the surfboard drift on the water as she basked in the sunlight.

It had been a long day. There had been yet another attack from an evil space alien on the day before. It would’ve gotten both her and Dustin if Cam hadn’t somehow managed singlehandedly fight off a pack of Kelzacks and she hadn’t figured how to use the refractive properties of water to make a laser beam— and why aliens kept trying to tie her up _specifically_ Tori had no clue.

_I guess it’s kinda flattering,_ Tori thought _, that all these aliens think I’m such a threat that the keep feeling they need to do it, but ugh. Who wants to be tied up after a sucky P.E. class?_

The whole thing had made Tori feel worn out. School wasn’t over for the summer, and the string of ESA attacks mixed with school, training, and family had started making the days blur together. _At the rate things are going I really hope there’s some special ninja time manipulation technique because we’ll have to start bending time itself to get some sleep in, though with my luck I’ll probably get hurled into some kind of an alternate dimension with everyone’s evil twin or something. Well, maybe not Cam’s,_ she corrected herself _. I don’t think he_ has _an evil twin._

Cam was definitely a problem too. Tori had appreciated him helping out, but he still wouldn’t talked much about the Gem of Souls thing no matter how much Tori pushed, and while she greatly appreciated all the work Cam put in for them in monitoring the board, that appreciation apparently wasn’t enough to keep him from clamming up whenever she or Shane tried to reach out.

_I just can’t figure out why I can’t get him to hang out with us,_ Tori thought as she began to paddle _. Maybe Shane would have better luck? At least, he didn’t seem surprised to hear Cam could fight like that, so he’s gotta know something about him we don’t. Maybe he can get Cam to chill._

“Or,” she muttered aloud, “to figure out how to help me not get tied up so much so Cam doesn’t have to leave Ninja Ops to come and rescue me again.”

By the time Tori had paddled to shore she had given up on finding any answers any time soon. “Well, at least I enough time to get over to Ops,” she muttered aloud to herself as she walked across the sand to where her white van had been parked, her board under her arm. As she got closer Tori noticed that someone had tucked a flyer under the windshield wiper. “Guess it’s that time of year again,” she asked the paper as she picked it up, reading the announcement on it for an environmental conference. “And I bet the Rangers are going to have to make an appearance too.”

 

_March 9, 2003, 1:27 PM_

“I don’t care how good-looking you are,” Dustin was saying. “You’re going down.”

Tori stared at him and Shane as they began to fight the clones that Sensei had made of them for their latest training exercise. It seemed pretty obvious to her that they weren’t getting far: every time one of them moved, the clone would dodge or make the corresponding attack.

_It’s kind of dizzying to watch_. Tori looked away from the fighting back to where her clone stood across from her in the small part of the Ninja Ops main room, long since cleared up and surprisingly well repaired from all the debris from Hunter and Bradley’s attack. The clone wore the same ninja uniform as Tori: a black gi with the thin blue stripe of the Water ninja style running alongside it. She was staring at Tori with the exact same smirk she swore that the one clone Marah and Kapri had made of her at the fashion shoot wore. _Then again, maybe I’m getting dizzy because it’s clones of them? I mean, it wasn’t that weird actually fighting my evil clone._

“Well?” the clone asked. “Are we going to do this, or do they get all the fun?”

“Uh guys?” Tori asked, choosing to ignore her. “I really don’t think we’re supposed to be fighting ourselves.”

Across from her the clone— which had continued to stand there smirking as Tori spoke — relaxed. Her face shifted to a smile, and Tori watched as the clone winked at her before disappearing before her eyes, joined soon after by the other clones once they had each knocked Shane and Dustin onto the ground.

“I’m tougher than I thought I was,” Shane groaned as he stood up, rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah, I can’t believe I kicked my own butt,” Dustin added from the floor.

“Seriously guys?” Cam asked from where he sat by the Ninja Ops console, speaking while he looked at the Ninja Ops monitor for a threat Tori could tell wasn’t marked there. “Embracing yourself is ninja basics 101.”

_If that’s the case, why won’t you let us embrace you?_ Tori thought. _At least, you could look at us when you say stuff like that._

“Oh right, I must’ve been sick that day,” Dustin began to reply.

“Sometimes its caution that wins the day,” Sensei interrupted, rolling his cart past Cam (who turned around in his chair to look at the Rangers) to where the ninjas stood. “ _That_ is why Tori will go after the Blue Turtle Mace, while you two will watch over the environmental conference to ensure it is held peacefully.”

“Oh come on!” Shane protested.

“Wait, there was a prize involved here?” Dustin asked.

“You can count on me,” Tori replied, ignoring the two of them as she took a knapsack and what she assumed was the map to the Blue Turtle Mace from Cam.

“A weapons hunt,” Shane scoffed. “Lucky.”

“Be sure to say hi to my dad at the conference if you see him!” Tori replied as she streaked out of the center.

 

_March 9, 2003, 3:00 PM_

“Finally,” Tori sighed with relief. “ _You_ are _very_ hard to find. Do you have any idea of how much forest I’ve had to cover?”

Quickly dispelling the compass arrow she had made from some stream water— and loving that figuring out how to make a water laser beam apparently transferred to making water compasses— Tori hurried through the woods. Eventually she ran lightly over a small hill to reach a small stack of stones that had just happened to be stacked into the shape of a shrine, reached in, and pulled out a tiny figurine of a blue turtle. “Let’s get you back to Ninja Ops,” she told the turtle.

“Hold it right there sister!” a high, grating voice yelled from behind.

_Oh for the love of Ninjor,_ Tori thought as she hurriedly snuck the turtle into her knapsack. _Can’t I get a break?_

“What’s in the bag?” the same voice demanded impatiently.

“You might as well tell us,” said another voice, one that sounded sweeter and lower. “Because we can just use our powers and take it away from you.”

Turning around, Tori saw two girls whose faces had grown more and more familiar with each alien she beat, two girls that were dressed in…well, Tori still wasn’t quite sure what to call their outfits besides “Alien.” They each were a mix of red and lavender, and looked like they were part-corset shirt things that they paired with black leather pants that were almost, but not quite, chaps clothes and huge, vaguely insectoid and star-fish headdresses. _They are aliens though, so maybe that’s okay?_

“Would those be the powers of really bad perfume?” Tori said aloud as she turned to face them. The comment made Kapri snicker and Marah try to tease her back, but Tori tuned them out in favor of looking for an escape route. _There’s one,_ she thought, and Tori quickly began to streak away.

“Oh, no you don’t!” cried Kapri from behind her, Tori barely hearing her talk before hearing the sounds of alien blasters being fired, the earth shooting up around in her piles of dirt as she ran.

_Ouch!_ Tori thought as a blast hit her leg, making her almost stumble before she managed to turn the motion into the beginnings of a somersault. After a few more flips Tori managed to right herself enough to shoot a few back at the two beams of her own Ninja energy, only to be hit by her own beams on the rebound. “Um guys,” Tori gritted out, raising her morpher to her mouth. “Some back-up please.” When it quickly became apparent that they weren’t coming— _that conference had better be under attack, or I’m so going to kill them_ — Tori rolled over, pushing up into a crouch. “I guess it’s just us girls,” she said.

Kapri and Marah charged.

It wasn’t a great fight.

_I really,_ really _don’t want to get tied up again,_ Tori thought to herself from where she had fallen after having been shadow-spared by Marah, and smack-blown to the ground by a Kapri grown to giant size— _and how had she done that?!_

“What do we have here?” Tori heard Kapri ask.

“Oh!” Marah exclaimed. “It’s so pretty! I’ve always wanted one of these…whatever it is.”

“That’s it!” Tori shouted. “You can bash me and thrash me, but step _away_ from the turtle!”

Kapri smirked, and suddenly something deep inside Tori went spacey. Tori felt her body get up. Felt it fight and slash, take a hit, and rise again to shoot a blazing blue blast of light from her sword at the girls, causing them to fall down and the figurine to fly right into the middle of the field.

_This…I’m pretty sure this is not an acceptable way to feel in the middle of a fight,_ Tori thought as she stared at the figurine, distantly aware of Kapri and Marah getting onto their feet. _I need to end this. Now._ “You know, this is taking us nowhere,” she told the other girls.

“Is that a way of giving up?” asked Kapri, sounding confident.

Tori rolled her eyes. “I’m not giving up, but this could go on for hours,” she told her as she remembered what she’d learned from _not_ fighting her clone. “Unless…”

“Unless we punish you with a humiliating defeat?” interrupted Kapri eagerly.

“Yeah, like that’ll happen,” Tori scoffed. “No, I thought maybe we could work something out.”

“Work something out?” Kapri said.

“Yeah,” Tori said aloud to the two of them, de-morphing to look them more easily in the face. “You know, work something out. Like a deal.”

“Why would we make a deal with you if we can just take the turtle?” asked Marah.

“But you _can’t_ just take the turtle,” Tori replied. “I’ll fight you for it.”

“You’re one, we’re two,” pointed Kapri.

“Yeah, because that had been really helping you so far,” Tori answered her. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty even here, and I don’t think you enjoy being beaten up any more than I do.” _Or tied up or blasted at,_ she added silently to herself.

“So?” Kapri asked, glancing at Marah. “We’re mortal enemies. Beating each other up is what we do.”

Tori had a thought. “You two are into fashion, right?”

“What.” asked Kapri as Marah began to giggle with excitement.

“I saw you on Chestnut Street a couple of times,” Tori said, thinking fast. “I know the kind of stuff you like.”

“Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“If you think I’m suggesting we trade, then yes. Do we have a deal?”

“But your taste is, like, so plain!” Marah said to her.

“I can surprise you,” Tori told her, watching as the girls ( _Maybe sisters? How do they know each other anyway, is there like an evil alien school somewhere?_ ) looked at each other.

“All right,” Kapri said at last, “but only if we like what we find. Otherwise, no deal.”

“Obviously,” Tori said, rolling her eyes.

It hadn’t taken too long to find something on Chestnut for the two. Tori even managed to find a new hand cream for Marah, which the girl seemed a little too happy to see. _Guess space and being evil really dries up your skin_ , Tori thought as she paid.

And after giving everything to the two of them, who in turn gave Tori back the figurine, Tori watched as the two beamed back into outer space from behind the store before hurrying to join Dustin and Shane, learning as she ran that the other Rangers had gotten locked into a zord battle outside the convention hall.

_Time to find out if this Turtle Mace was worth it,_ Tori thought as she ran.

 

_March 10, 2003, 10:00 P.M._

“At last,” Tori thought as she lied down to sleep.

She had just barely managed to come home in time to avoid provoking her parents curiosity about where she was coming from, running upstairs to change her clothes and hurriedly splash some water on her face to wipe off the grime from the zord battle and her search for the figurine that hadn’t gotten disappeared when she de-morphed. By the time she came down again she _almost_ felt like a normal teenage girl, eating a nice, normal dinner. One that just happened to include listening to her father rant about having to cover Ranger attacks when every journalistic ethical bone in his body was saying he should be covering the Dixie Chicks telling off the President of the United States.

“So _that_ must be what it means to go with the flow,” Tori whispered into her pillow as she thought about the spacey feeling she had had earlier while fighting Marah and Kapri.

Tori had thought about it while eating dinner—two hearty pieces of chicken casserole with salad, her mom’s version of comfort food— while answering her parents’ questions about how math classes were going and if the surfing had been good. Eventually she reached the conclusion that that must’ve been what happened because it felt closer to the sense of flow she got on her board than anything else, although Tori hadn’t realized that she could also reach that as a Ranger.

_Maybe it has something to do with that_? Tori reflected. _I mean, it’s not like we have a ton of accurate information on what it’s like for ninjas to double as Power Rangers outside of those comics that Dustin reads, and there’s no way half of what’s printed there can actually be right. I mean, they didn’t even get the zords or the_ outfits _right!_

Shaking her head Tori resettled in her bed, wondering if Shane or Dustin would try to call her over her morpher before it got much later. She had noticed that the two of them had been sheepish around each other when they’d gotten back to Ninja ops. Apparently the monster who’d come to the environmental conference had had the ability to cut the “ties of friendship,” which made Tori incredibly glad to have not been present, and which seemed to have hit the Air and Earth ninjas hard, even if by the time they’d gotten out they seemed to have bonded even closer over the experience.

The only other person who might’ve recognized something was Cam, but he hadn’t made any comment though about the whole thing either, as if it was a perfectly normal. _Maybe it is: I’m not the one who is spending days sitting behind a monitor watching three teenagers fight aliens, supply them the latest gear, and then sit through typing up debriefs and spending the night with a Sensei that probably feels like a pet more than a dad._ _Matter of fact_ , Tori thought to herself, _going out to get the Blue Turtle was probably the closest to doing what Cam does that any of us have really done._

And the strength of that suddenly hit Tori like a wave of cold seawater splashing over her. In the past almost-month since they had become Power Rangers she, Shane, and Dustin had been spending a lot of time around each other, even at Storm Chargers— to the point Tori was actively thinking of asking Kelly to teach her how to run her own surf shop one day. But the point was all three of them _were_ all around each other all the time. They understand each other, even more now that Dustin had made sure to mark “Hang Ten in the Lounge” on the work board once a week for them. It had led Shane to pick up Dustin’s hand gestures, and she had to fight the urge to use Shane’s skater slang around the other surfers, and Dustin had tried to use some of their tricks to rack up the high score on the video game in the backroom of Storm Chargers.

But Cam didn’t get to do any of that. He only got to see them on duty. And while Shane’s use of humor seemed to be helping Cam to open up more, Tori could tell he wasn’t much closer in trying to open Cam up, even to the levels that he’d been at when Sensei had been kidnapped by Blake and Hunter.

_Not that I want Sensei to get kidnapped again,_ she thought as she felt herself finally begin to fall asleep, _but…maybe it’d be nice Blake or Hunter came back. I bet they’d get him to open up somehow._


	11. Chapter VII: Mirrors of the Earth

_“Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together? Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences.”_

  * Emery Allen



 

 

_March 14, 2003, 11:25 AM_

Dustin sat behind the counter at Storm Charger’s watching as people milled around the store. _Ah_ , _chill at last,_ he thought, resting his head onto the counter. _Way better than earlier._

Earlier definitely hadn’t been that chill.

 

_[“That’s Roger Hannah!” Dustin had hissed to Tori from the lounge. Dustin had managed to time his shelving break with Tori’s study time to keep her company, and it had totally just paid off._

_“Who’s Roger Hannah?”_

_“Five Times motocross winner,” Dustin had told her as he gestured subtly towards the man. “More wins than anybody on the planet.”_

_“That might be a stretch,” Roger Hannah had replied as he walked towards them._

_“You’re team manager for Factory Blue right?” Dustin had blurted out, surprised that Roger Hanna-_ the _Roger Hannah, motocross manager extreme- was talking to them, two teenagers sitting around doing nothing._

_“Right,” he replied. “I’m looking for Kelly.”_

_“You know Kelly?” Tori had asked._

_“Factory managers tend to move in similar circles,” Roger Hannah had replied. “But yeah. Apparently there’re these two guys named Hunter and Blake whose tapes I gotta see. You wouldn’t happen to know them?”_

_“Blake and Hunter?” Tori had said. “You could say we know them.”_

_“Can you tell me where they are?”_

_“I really wish I could.”_

_“Yeah, she does dude,_ trust _me,” Dustin had confirmed, ignoring the look Tori shot him. “She’s, um, got this thing for—”_

_“Don’t even go there,” Tori had interrupted.]_

 

All of which meant that Dustin had managed to fail Roger Hannah _and_ not got a chance to show the man his own factory tape which, fine, whatever, Dustin and Blake actually _were_ that good and Dustin wasn’t going to mope too much about being contracted blocked by kinda cute, former evil Power Ranger Ninja Bikers.

But then Tori had to go and borrow his race bike.

 

 _[“Oh no,” Dustin had said as Tori had begun to unlock his bike from the bike stand at the front of Storm Chargers. “You see, the way that usually works is you ask me first, and then I think about for a half a second before it tell you that the only way you can ride my race bike is if you_ tie me down and torture me _.”_

_“Do you really want it to come that?” Tori had asked._

_“Tori, I just did a prep! It’s perfect!” he had replied, gesturing towards his bike._

_“Look, I really miss Blake,” Tori had replied, the response making Dustin feel awkward, “and riding makes me feel like he’s still around. And since Cam keeps the Tsunami Cycles under lock and key this is as close as it gets.”_

_“I- ah- okay, fine,” Dustin had said, hoping the sinking feeling in his stomach was just from the breakfast burrito he’d chowed down on his way in that day. “But if you bend the bars, or break the shifter off, you have to—”_

_“Fix it, yes, I know,” she had said as she took the bike outside just as Shane had walked into Storm Chargers.”_

_“Dude, I just saw Tori out front,” Shane hissed._

_“Yeah, ruining my pride and joy bad.”_

_Shane had stared at Dustin. “You never even let me ride that thing.”_

_“Well she hits harder than you do!”_

_“…good point.”]_

 

Still, if there was one thing Dustin could safely say he prided himself on, it was his ability to get himself out of the dumps. So even though it hadn’t been the best of mornings, the sight of people checking out the bikes and the smell of the Blue Harbor Bay breeze was soothing enough for Dustin that after a few hours had passed he had begun to feel a small grin breaking out onto his face.

Suddenly bell hanging over the Storm Chargers door jiggled, drawing Dustin’s attention towards it and revealing—

“Blake!” Dustin shouted, hurriedly getting out from behind the counter and crossing the door to pull the guy into a hug. “Dude,” he said, slapping his back. “I’m so glad to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too,” Blake said back, looking kinda sheepish at being hugged. Dustin quickly looked over him, noticing the slight traces of dust on his clothes ( _must’ve been out riding)_ but that overall Blake looked pretty much the same as when he’d left.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up.,” Dustin said. “Bro, Tori’s going to love this!”

“Did she miss me?”

“Dude, you wouldn’t believe. She missed you so much I actually let her take my bike for a ride,” Dustin told him as he watched him look around, confirming for Dustin the guess he had made about the Navy Ranger’s interest in his lighter-blue tinted colleague. _Storm and Water do go well together,_ Dustin thought to himself.

“Oh yeah, where— wait, she _what_?!” Blake shouted, drawing people’s attention for a brief moment.

“I know!” Dustin grumbled as people began to look away. “Even Shane thought it was bogus. But dude, she’s got a killer right hook, and she’s been handling her bike a whole lot better these days, so I’m trying not to panic too much, you know?”

“Her bi- Oh,” Blake said, looking confused for a moment. “Oh, you mean the, ah, Watanabe model she was trying out.”

“Yes, the _Watanabe_ model,” Dustin said, winking at him. “I mean, it’s still rough going, she keeps wanting to fly the wheels off the ramps like it’s a surfboard and not a thing with brakes on it, but she definitely can ride it. ‘Course, I told her if she puts a scratch on mine then—”

“I bet,” Blake interrupted. “Where can I find her?”

 _Bro, rude?_ “Probably the woods?” Dustin said, gesturing out the door. “I don’t think she was heading out that far and she just left here, like, five minutes ago. You’re not far behind.”

“Thanks,” said Blake, turning to head out the door.

“Hey, Blake,” called Dustin.

“Yeah?” Blake said, pausing before opening the door.

 _Be cool Dustin, be cool._ “Are you and, uh, Hunter going to be hanging around town for a while?” Dustin asked aloud.

“I don’t know,” answered Blake, sounding surprised to Dustin. “We’re sorta in the middle of something. Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” Dustin said quickly. “It’s just…I was hoping you’d be sticking around, but, really, you know, you do you man.”

“Thanks,” Blake said, starting to move towards the front door. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, that’d be awesome! See you later!” Dustin called after him as he walked. Sighing to himself, he quickly glanced around to make sure no one seemed to be in need of any help before heading back to sit behind the cash register at the counter.

 _Maybe I’ll see your brother too_? Dustin thought to himself, running his fingers idly over the box.

It wasn’t that Dustin didn’t want to see Blake. Blake was a motocross dude like himself, and in a harbor town where water sport jocks tended to get more glory and less side-eyeing from the Blue Bay Harbor Police Department than their land-loving cousins, Dustin honestly enjoyed getting to know pretty much anyone who was a biker. Especially if they were new to town like Blake and Hunter technically were. He’d love being able to ride with Blake on the track again.

 _But he doesn’t have Hunter’s eyes,_ Dustin admitted to himself, feeling a flush of warmth run through his body. _Or that soft, kinda flippy hair. Or stretch out a tee like that, man_.

“Um excuse me?” a voice said, drawing Dustin’s attention back from where it had wondered off into the middle distance of the store’s skateboard section back to the counter in front of him, where a small nine-year old girl was standing.

“Hey there,” Dustin asked, putting on the smile Shane had called his “I’m a completely _not_ -pedo grown-up stranger” grin. “What’s your name?”

“Kel-sey.”

“Well Ms. Kel-sey, how can I help you?”

The girl smiled at him. “I’m trying to find skates,” she said firmly, sounding like she was trying to be very grown-up. “Do you have those here?”

“Why yes we do,” Dustin said. “Here, let me show you.”

 

 

_March 14, 2003, 2:17 PM_

                “—they said that they’ll let us know what happened,” Dustin heard Tori tell Shane as he walked into Ninja Ops. “I trust them.”

                “If them is Blake and Hunter, might wanna rethink that,” Dustin grumbled as he caught sight of the two sparring in the area in the main room that Dustin guessed was just going to be their sparring space until they could be sure nobody would infiltrate the giant crater outside. Cam and Sensei ignored them, apparently choosing to pay way more attention to on something over by the monitors than the two teenagers.

                Shane and Tori paused, shifting out of fighting stances to stand more casually in the space. “What’s up?” Shane asked him.

“I just saw them in the shop, and they just totally blew me off! It was like deja-vu all over again!”

“Technically that’s impossible Dustin,” Cam called out.

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Whatever man,” he shouted back. “I’m telling you. These guys are suffering from some major brain fade. It’s like our little adventure in the cavern of lost souls never happened!”

“I thought we were all cool,” Tori said.

“Like those guys are ever reliable,” Shane muttered.

Dustin tuned out what he was sure was going to be another round of Shane and Tori debating whether to trust the two, something he knew they’d been talking about for a while (and, wow, it didn’t sting at all that he’d been left outside of that one). What had seriously stung as when he had seen Hunter and Blake sign with Roger Hannah before just…refusing to hang with Dustin. At all. Like, yes, Factory Blue is a big deal, but Blake had said they’d hang out, like, two hours before, and now they didn’t even want to check out the new Triple Club Factory stock that every biker in town had been waiting a week for?

“Look, just because Blake rode with you doesn’t mean they like me or Dustin,” Shane was saying.

“I’m just saying they can’t be all evil,” Tori said defensively.

“Hey, speaking of bikes, you fix mine yet?” Dustin asked.

“Huh?” Tori replied.

Dustin glared at the Blue Ranger. “Tor, I failed at helping out Roger Hannah today _and_ gotten completely blown off by a pair of biker brothers. You had better tell me you got the fender facing the right way again.”

“Dustin—”

“ _Listen_ Miss Freestyle No-Hand Landing, you scratch my bike, you _fix_ it _._ ”

“But—”

 _“Fix my bike_ _Tori_!”

Just then the Rangers alarm sounded, the blaring in Ninja Ops cutting off whatever response Tori was about to give.

 

 

_March 14, 2003, 3:02 PM_

“I don’t see anything,” said Shane, glancing around the downtown construction site Cam had said the monitoring system was directing them to, Shane’s voice sounding cautious over the Ranger helmet communication line.

Dustin shrugged. “Yeah, all I see is dirt, and pipes, and…abandoned safety helmets?” he asked, glancing around. “Dude, not cool risking workers like that.”

“You know, I don’t want to say this,” Tori added, “but now that you mention it, isn’t this is how it always starts?”

“Aw come on guys, don’t jinx us,” Dustin said. “Maybe this time it’ll be perfectly- oh, come on!” he shouted as the three of them were suddenly surrounded by a field of smog so thick he couldn’t see in front of his visor.

“Brutal smoke alert!” declared Dustin. “Where is this dude?”

“You, alien!” called Shane, followed by the sound of what Dustin guessed was the alien’s fist hitting his chest, only to feel himself get knocked to the ground as well.

“I rest my case,” Tori muttered a moment later, just as the smoke cleared to reveal—

 _Okay, so where’s the alien?_ Dustin thought, glancing around the construction site.

“So, who is it if not the famous Power Rangers,” growled the alien’s voice, hidden somewhere among the scaffolds. “Have anyone ever told you that you look taller on TV?”

 _Holy Zordon, it watches TV? Please tell me it’s not gonna brainwash us or something._ “Did anyone ever tell you that you look uglier in person?” Dustin answered as the alien walked out from its hiding place.

“What is this, attack of the giant snail?” Tori said.

“Nice one Tor,” Dustin mumbled into the comm.

“Not a problem!” snarled Shane, moving to line up with Tori and Dustin, the trio drawing their swords to prepare to attack.

 _Wait for it,_ Dustin thought, tightening his grip as he watched the alien meander across the construction site towards them. _Wait for it…_

 _“_ Hey remember us?” a voice called out.

“You guys?” Dustin asked as Blake and Hunter walked out. _Damn, I forgot how Hunter looked in his gear._

“What are you doing here?” Tori asked.

Dustin never got a chance to hear any answer to the question as the Thunder Rangers walked into the battle…and immediately began to attack him and Shane, instead of the _very visible_ alien on the others side.

“Blake, stop!” Dustin heard Shane cry out as Dustin dodged a blow from Hunter’s staff. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“But you don’t have a choice,” Blake said as he pressed on.

“Time to split,” Dustin said, drawing on his ninja power.

“Oh no, two Dustins,” Hunter replied as Dustin felt himself double in front of him. “Please. Your ninja tricks can’t fool me.”

“Ninja Power,” Dustin cried out as he struck, only to find himself grabbing an empty uniform. “Oh man,” he said, feeling himself shift back into one Dustin again. “That’s my move. Where’d he go?”

“Hey Dustin,” a voice said from above him. “How about a giving me five down low!”

Dustin found he had just enough time to wonder how Hunter had managed to figure out how to become giant size— _Tori said Kapri could, maybe she taught him?—_ before the Thunder Ninja had smacked him into the pavement, the force leaving shatter marks in the floor.

“I’m okay,” Dustin muttered as he got up. “Not a problem.”

“…Maybe a nice shower will cool you off?” Dustin heard Tori say over the line.

 _Oh good,_ Dustin thought. _Somebody’s going after the evil space snail here._

An evil space snail that, it turned out, would release toxic fumes if struck.

“Aw, that fully reeks!” Dustin said as the Rangers raced after the snail, chasing him around the construction site until at last they cornered him in part of what Dustin thought would turn out to be an office when the building was finished.

“You can’t escape my furious fumes, Rangers!” the alien shouted gleefully.

“This guy’s stinking up my whole day!” said Shane, and Dustin found himself nodding along.

“I say he needs to be smog-checked!” declared Tori.

The alien, standing on a catwalk above them, snickered. “Don’t like my fumes, Rangers?”

_No, dude. No we don’t._

“Let’s show this guy the wind in Wind Rangers!” Shane asked.

“All right!” Dustin shouted.

“Really,” drawled the alien, “like I’m scared of a little wind.”

Shane struck out a pose. “Then come on down!”

“Don’t be chicken!” said Tori.

“Don’t be shellfish!” added Dustin, reveling in the groan his pun drew from Shane and Tori.

“Oh it’s so on!” the alien shouted. “Mega Warning Breath!”

“Try a mint!” Shane shouted back.

After the smoke attack began Dustin heard Shane yell, “Let’s put him in the spin cycle,” and grab Dustin’s left arm, leaving Dustin’s right for Tori, who grabbed it a second later.

“You- gots- to- go,” Dustin yelled as they all began to spin together.

Dustin had to admit the spin cycle was still one of his favorites. It was one of the first moves he, Shane, and Tori had ever done even as ninja cadets. But Dustin could admit to himself that his love for it was probably because of the look on Cam’s face when Cam had arrived to see them using it to power wash the Academy Square tiles while power drying the three loads of laundry they had been assigned to clean as punishment for being tardy too many times. It had led to Cam clarifying to them that his dad hadn’t quite mean that when he told them to “work together to clean.”

It was also a really, _really_ powerful move, and it wasn’t long that the spinning had created a tornado strong enough to fling the alien around the room, along with a few pieces of abandoned construction equipment that Dustin hoped the work crew wouldn’t need to be operating any time soon.

“And…now!” Shane shouted, and Dustin felt himself move along with Tori to help shift the alien out of the building, splitting up after dropping the alien in a nearby field to quickly combine their weapons to form the cannon-shaped weapon Cam had told them was called the Storm Striker.

 _Man I love this thing_ , Dustin thought as they fired, watching as the blast destroyed it with ease.

“So, you ready to head out?” Shane asked to Dustin.

“Aw, man,” Dustin groaned as he caught sight of two zords that was rolling down towards the site.

“What- oh, really?!” Shane shouted.

“No way,” mumbled Tori.

“Well,” said Shane grimly as Dustin stared at what he was pretty sure was the Bradley twins zords. “It’s not like those guys were ever reliable. Cam, your thoughts?”

“I’m thinking megazord,” Dustin heard himself say. “Or, you know, today’s kinda been a weird day for everyone. Maybe we should just let them go?”

“Or _maybe_ they’re just evil ninjas we need to snap,” snapped Shane.

“They’re not transforming,” Tori pointed out, gesturing towards where the zords had stopped. “Maybe we should talk to them or something?”

“Tori!”

“Well what do you expect me to say, Shane, blast them into smithereens? It’s Blake and Hunter!”

Suddenly there was a flash of extremely bright white light.

 

 

_March 14, 2003, Time Unknown_

Dustin’s body felt like it had taken a crash landing into the final track dust mound just in time to get lapped.

“Ugh, I feel like I just got run over by a brigade of 250s,” he said as he tried to stand up.

“Me to, whatever that means,” he heard Tori say from beside him.

“Tor?”

“Dustin?”

“Present,” Dustin gritted out as his eyes adjusted to see that they were standing on what looked like a dark sand shore. “You okay?” he added once he could look at the Blue Ranger properly, noticing that whatever had happened had made her un-morph back into blue jeans and the purple-pink-blue checked long-sleeve she had been wearing earlier that morning. “You look…sandy.”

Tor winced. “I’m okay,” she said, brushing a streak of wet sand off her jeans. “You?”

“I mean, I’m sore, but I think I’m good,” he asked, patting himself down.

“You’re un-morphed.”

“Yeah, you are too. Hey, my shirt okay? What,” he asked when he saw her staring at him. “I like this shirt!”

“Can’t find another yellow-white plaid to wear?”

“Probably not here…wherever here is.”

Tori sighed. “Hey, where’s Shane?” she asked. “Shane!”

“Shane!” Dustin echoed.

“Shane!” Tori shouted, and Dustin slowly realized that wherever they were, they were not in the construction site, and there wasn’t any Shane around.

“Shane!” Tori shouted again, followed by Dustin echoing her.

“Shane!”

“Shane!”

“Right here!” Shane called from off to the side of—

 _Is that some kinda rocky sand dune?_ Dustin thought as he watched his friend walk down towards them closer, his red sports jersey bouncing as the Red Ranger came down the crags.

“I hiked up the hill,” Shane explained, once he was close enough that he didn’t have to shout, “to check things out. We’re on an island.”

“An island?” asked Tori.

“Yeah,” Shane confirmed. “There’s no other land as I can see. And don’t bother,” Dustin heard Shane say just as Dustin had begun to reach for his morpher. “It’s dead.”

“Last thing I remember,” Dustin said, “we were about to Battle Royale it out with Blake and Hunter.”

“Yeah,” grunted Shane. “Don’t remind me.”

“Oh good, so I’m not crazy.”

“Hey, what’s _that_ supposed to mean?” said Tori sharply.

“What? Nothing!” Dustin began.

“I’m sure they’ve got an explanation!”

“We’ve known these guys for like a month—” Shane said to Tori.

“Ah, more like three days, pre-whatever this is—” Dustin clarified.

And how much of that time have they _not_ tried to kill us?” Shane continued. “After all we’ve been through, them trying to kill us when we’ve never tried to hurt them is a pretty good sign that _no_ , they really _don’t_ have a good explanation!”

“You didn’t see Blake the other day!” protested Tori. “Something must have happened to him and Hunter!”

“When you’re ready to get real come and talk to me, all right?” Shane said, turning away from them. “I’ve got to find a way out of here.”

“Aw, come on,” Dustin started.

“Save it Dustin,” Tori grumbled. “You know he’s just going to hold it over us. Stupid falcon.”

“Hey now, no zord-shaming.”

Tori smiled. “Should we catch up to him?”

“Yeah, we probably should.”

Tori sighed. “Wait a minute!” Tori called to the red, causing Shane to stop and wait for them to catch up.

“Hey, we could always trade him in for a new ranger. Maybe a green one?” Dustin said, making Tori snicker as they climbed up the hill after the Red Ranger.

“All right, I admit this is brutal for a couple of guys who promised they wouldn’t attack us again,” said Tori as she came closer, “but you have to admit there might be some possibly logical reason to all of this.”

“No I—” Shane began, only to be interrupted by what Dustin thought was the sound of Ninjas streaking.

“Um guys?” Dustin asked. “You all saw- er, heard- that right?”

“I did,” Shane said, streaking after it.

“Same here,” Tori said following after him.

“Saw what? Guys!” Dustin called, streaking behind them until— “Over there!” Shane shouted, pointing towards thin hints of navy and crimson that Dustin knew meant Blake and Hunter must’ve been streaking nearby.

The trio streaked after them, cutting across what Dustin thought was the island proper until, at last, they ran into Hunter and Blake. The two of them were standing un-morphed but in their ninja gis in the middle of a forest.

 _Well this looks ominous,_ Dustin thought to himself as he watched Tori say hi to Blake only for the darker-blue to ignore her.

“Good eyes Shane,” Blake said at last.

“You ever wonder if two Thunder Rangers got into a fight with three Wind Rangers who would win?” Hunter asked him.

“No one,” Tori said before Blake could respond. “The only way to win is to work together.”

“Aw, a lesson of the week,” Hunter teased. “Let me guess, Sensei taught you that?”

“What’s going _on_ with you guys?” Dustin blurted out, gesturing between them. “We’re not supposed to be fighting each other, remember? We are _supposed_ to be _helping_ each other. At least, that’s what I _thought_ we were doing now.”

“You guessed wrong,” Blake said.

“But don’t worry,” Hunter added. “We’ll even give you a head start if you want.”

“Sorry Tori,” Shane said as he began to drop into a fighting stance, “but we can’t let these guys stomp us.”

Tori sighed. “I have no intention of letting them stomp us,” she said, looking at Blake.

“Dude, Blake, I gave you a bro-hug this morning,” Dustin complained. “Do we seriously have to do this?”

 _Apparently,_ Dustin thought as the two attacked, Blake diving at him and Tori.

And at first it was just as rough as Dustin remembered, but… _I’m pretty sure Blake was more coordinated than_ this, Dustin thought to himself after he saw Tori get in a hit that he knew Blake could’ve dodged. _Tori’s right, something’s off_.

Suddenly Hunter streaked away.

“Try to keep up,” Blake said, streaking shortly after.

“Was it just me, or did he seem out of it?” Dustin asked Tori.

Tori nodded. “Come on.”

“Right,” Dustin said, following her as they chased after the two brothers, landing just in time to split Shane from where Hunter stood next to Blake.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” said Shane slowly. “But you’re not exactly giving us a choice, are you?”

“Are we having fun yet?” Blake asked.

“No, but there’s always this,” Hunter said, raising his morpher.

“I knew that was coming,” muttered Dustin as the Thunder Rangers morphed.

“Oh it’s on now!” Hunter said, charging at Shane.

 _Why does he always go after Shane_? Dustin thought idly to himself as he watched Shane morph in time to able to raise his Ninja Sword to block Hunter. _Is it some kinda Red thing?_

“You’re right Shane,” Tori said as she morphed. “They’re not gonna listen to reason.”

“If it’s them or us, I choose us,” Dustin confirmed as he morphed.

“Thank you, _finally_ , someone’s _listening_ to me!” Shane said as he dodged.

Dustin was about to correct him when Blake suddenly charged at Tori and him.

“Ninja beam!” Dustin called, firing a beam of his power at Blake, only to see him dodge it and let the yellow blast hit Tori instead. “Tori!”

“I’m okay!” Tori cried out.

“Your aim is lame Dustin, but I’m not shocked. Are you?” Blake asked right before lifting Dustin up into the air with what Dustin swore was a lasso made of lightning.

 _This. Is. So. Bogus_! Dustin thought as Blake whipped him around, glad that Cam had upgraded the Wind Ranger suits with enough insulation to prevent low-grade electrocution. Distantly he heard Tori shout and hit Blake, the sound causing the lightning to disperse and Dustin to fall onto the sand, followed by Shane rolling to stand next to him.

“Wha-” Dustin asked quietly, watching as Bradley brothers again lined up next to each other to stand silently as the Wind Ninjas caught their breaths.

“Alright look, you obviously have some serious emotional problems you’re dealing with,” Shane was saying to Hunter. “You ever consider group therapy?”

“Hmm…nah,” Hunter replied, streaking away.

“Are we really going to chase them all over this place?” Dustin asked Shane.

“What, you’ve got some place better to go?” Tori replied before starting to move, Shane following close behind.

“Yeah, like off the island,” Dustin grumbled as he began to streak, noting distantly as he ran that the island was actually really hilly.

“This is getting old,” Tori was saying to Blake as Dustin came to a stop next to her.

“Yeah,” Dustin added. “I mean, hey, I love dirt as much as the next guy—”

“Too bad it doesn’t show in your riding,” Blake said.

 _Oh Zordon no._ “You did _not_ just bag on my riding,” Dustin said, charging at Blake, only to find himself being thrown right into the middle of a mud puddle that lay between Hunter and Shane.

 _Well that’s ironic,_ Dustin thought to himself, managing to get up again just in time to see Hunter suddenly double over.

“Dude,” Dustin heard himself ask. “You okay?”

“Hunter?” Dustin heard Shane ask quietly.

“Blake, wait,” Hunter was saying. “Isn’t…isn’t Dustin our friend?”

“Shane look!” Tori shouted, and Dustin turned to see Blake was kneeling in front of her de-morphed, holding the blade of Tori’s sword away from her.

 _He looks scared_ Dustin thought, de-morphing as he turned to run towards Tori.

“Ah, my head!” Blake was crying.

“Shane?” Hunter asked from behind him. “What’s going on? Where…? Where are we? Why are we morphed?”

“Are you alright bro?” Blake asked, struggling to stand up.

“Yeah, I-what happened? What are you guys doing here?” Hunter asked. “Last thing I remember was Blake and I trying to get onto Lothor’s ship…”

“Hey you in the bug suits,” said a booming, gleeful voice from the top of the nearest cliff. “I can answer that question for you,”

Dustin turned around and saw what appeared to be a large green alien wearing a space age backpack. _Oh one of Lothor’s goons…Wait, I know this one!_ Dustin thought as he shifted his stance. _What’s his name again?_

“Choobo,” hissed Blake.

_Right, evil alien space general._

“Yeah I’m talking to you,” said Choobo, the alien’s apparent good mood undeterred by the venom in Blake’s voice. “I’ve worked _too hard_ for you to mess things up now! Super Toxipod!”

“Missed me, Rangers?” Super Toxipod asked.

“Wait, didn’t we already fight this guy?” asked Shane.

“Yes,” Tori confirmed. “But he smells worse.”

“Everything about me is worse!” announced Super Toxipod.

“Great,” Dustin said “Why couldn’t you just stay down again?”

“Because that might make our lives boring,” muttered Hunter, just as Tori replied sarcastically, “because it’s so much more interesting to fight the same alien twice.”

“Ah, can we discuss this later?” said Dustin. “Giant snail alien man who probably wants to kill us standing right here.”

“ _Kill_ you?” Super Toxipod said. “I want to sink this island with you on it! I want to cause an atmospheric disruption that’ll sink to one hundred degrees below zero! I want _payback_!”

“…okay, yeah, let’s get rid of this guy,” Shane replied.

“On it,” Dustin muttered as he morphed, hearing Hunter snicker as a bunch of Kelzack foot soldiers began to appear.

“How’d the Kelzacks get here?” Tori asked.

“Maybe they got a group rate?” Dustin replied to her.

Behind him, Dustin could hear the sounds of the Thunder Rangers morphing, and soon all five rangers were fighting the snail and the Kelzacks on the shoreline of the island Dustin guessed Super Toxipod had sent them to. Not that the Kelzacks provided much of a fight for five Rangers, at least until the fumes started.

 _Gah, I’m going to be washing this thing so hard tonight,_ Dustin thought as he hit Kelzacks, trying to swerve around a smaller group while trying to avoid going into the vents billowing toxic smog out. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shane throw a Kelzack into one of the fumes, only to watch as the Kelzack full off and then turned on the other Kelzacks.

 _“_ We’re steaming Kelzacks tonight!” Dustin cheered, getting ready to throw some more Kelzacks into the fumes when they suddenly retreated, making space for Choobo and Super Toxipod to approach.

“Listen to me, Crimson Ranger,” Choobo said seriously. “Your brother has betrayed you.”

There was a pause.

“That’s crazy!” Hunter shouted.

“Seriously?” Shane asked, sounding insulted. “You kidnap us and _that’s_ the best line you can come up with?”

“Yeah dude,” Dustin found himself agreeing. “You really need better plans.”

Right then another beam, this time a purple-white one, shot down, almost hitting Blake but striking Hunter instead.

“Yeah, that’s a better plan,” Dustin forced himself to admit as he watched Hunter begin to attack Blake.

 _Maybe_ I _should be the one trying not to jinx us,_ he added to himself.

“What- now they’re fighting each other?!” Shane said, running to get in between the brothers.

“This is crazy,” Tori agreed.

“Stop! What’s wrong with you?” Blake was shouting desperately as he tried to block his brother’s punches. “Don’t you remember anything that’s happened? Think about everything we’ve been through: you know the truth! This isn’t you!”

Blake didn’t say much more as Hunter flung him against the side of a cliff. _Dude,_ _that’s- I guess Bros before Alien Mind-Control Beams isn’t a thing with Thunder Ninjas,_ Dustin thought as he ran to help Shane and Tori split the brothers apart, only to find himself shoved to the side as Super Toxipod tripped Hunter stepped into one of the fumes _._

 _“_ Finish it!” Choobo cried out. “It’ll be a cold new world!”

“Shane!” Dustin shouted. “I’d like- to vote for a- strategic retreat.”

“Seconded,” he heard Tori say back.

“This has gone far enough,” shouted Shane. “Ninja Smoke Screen!”

Soon the haze had covered Shane, Dustin, and Tori, grabbing Blake, the three of them ran.

 

 

_March 14, 2003, Some Time Later_

Dustin stared at the bright sun from where the Rangers stood on yet another cliff further down on the island’s shore. _Kind of a lame island,_ he thought to himself. _Dark beach, rocks, some hills. A forest. It’s like some video game knockoff._

“Hunter’s the only family I have. He’s always been there for me,” Blake was saying to Shane and Tori.

“We’ll do whatever we can,” Tori said comfortingly.

“We’re there for you bro,” Shane added. “Fully.”

“Is it just me, or is it starting to get seriously cold,” Dustin interrupted.

“The sun’s out,” Shane said just as a cloud passed over it. “Well, not anymore.”

“Now that you mention it, it kinda is,” Tori said. “And we can’t stay out here forever anyway.”

“We should probably find shelter,” Shane said.

“What, like for the night?” Dustin asked.

“Hopefully not for the night, but at least for now man.”

“It looks like there’s a cave over there,” Tori told him, pointing further down the hill towards a dark spot on the horizon. “Guess we could camp out over there.”

“A cave?” Dustin asked.

“You see any hotels in all our streaking around?” Tori asked. “Face it, we’re roughing it tonight.”

 

***

 

“But I just- I don’t _get_ it, you know?” Blake was saying quietly. “Even with that beam, even with the fumes, I can’t believe Hunter didn’t recognize me…”

Dustin sighed. “But dude, he didn’t,” he said, coming to sit down onto the sandy floor of the cave next to the Thunder Blue Ranger while Shane and Tori—who’d agreed to take first watch— began to walk over towards the entrance of the save. “If you’d have asked me two months ago, I’d tell you that alien space ninjas aren’t real. If you’d have asked them two months, they would have said Power Rangers aren’t real,” he added, gesturing at Shane and Tori. “And hey, it turns out? It’s all real. So you can keep saying that it can’t be,” Dustin said, grabbing Blake’s shoulder and trying not to take his flinching too personally, “or you can help us help you save your bro, bro. So, dude, what’s it gonna be?”

“Okay,” Blake said after a moment.

“Okay,” Dustin said. “Okay, let’s just breathe here for a bit.”

“An Earth ninja advocating breathing exercises,” Blake huffed. “That’s new.”

“Hey Sensei did _try_ to get me used to the Air Wind Ninja style’s sitting meditation thing more,” Dustin said defensively. “It’s not my fault that it didn’t take.”

“Really?”

“I kept tapping my foot. What?” Dustin said as Blake began to laugh. “Dude, you know that in motocross ‘hold here’ means ‘prep to rev like a righteous 1950s dragger,’ you can’t just turn that _off_ , you know?”

“Dustin, never change.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“No, I mean, you’re always so…upbeat,” Blake said after a moment. “I wish I had that.”

“Ah, that’s— are we really going to go here?” Dustin said, running a thumb against his nose.

“Well, is there a story or something?” Blake asked, sounding confused.

Dustin sighed. “Yeah I…okay, do you know how we Wind Ninjas pick our elements?”

“Trial by combat? Hey, that’s how we did it at the Thunder Academy,” Blake said when Dustin stared at him. “Offensive tactic-preferring folks got Lightning, defensive Thunder.”

“Bro, that’s- that’s so no bueno,” Dustin muttered. “Like, that’s just asking for an accident.”

“Dustin, we fling lightning.”

“Well, unlikely certain crazy ninja academies, we don’t try to traumatize ourselves into our elements,” Dustin said. “We do a Kanji search.”

“A- you go find _ink marks in the wild_?”

“We go find stuff to _make_ ink marks in the wild, and then Sensei lines us up,” Dustin explained. “I mean, we wind up learning a little bit of everything, have to for group work obviously, but the idea’s if you find your element in the wild then—”

“Then it’s calling for you,” Blake finished. “That’s definitely calmer than what we did.”

“And that was kinda the problem.”

“Huh?”

Dustin sighed. “So Shane, right? When it was his turn he grabbed his sheet of paper, ran into the woods for like ten minutes, came back and handed Sensei an impression that he’d made by slapping it against the pine needles and bird feathers.”

“Oh Dimitria.”

“Yeah, well, Sensei took one look at it and was all ‘there’s an impressive image of Fire being held aloft up, as if being blown by a bonfire, and thus you shall be Air,’ because apparently we wrapped Fire up into Air, like, a generation ago.”

“Okay…”

“And Tori,” Dustin continued, “she straight up rode hers like a surfboard over the Academy waterfall, so that was a no brainer.”

“And you?”

“I, well, I, ah—”

“Oh, come on, don’t ruin the moment now.”

“Iranoverminewithmybike.”

Blake blinked. “You what?”

“Look, it’s- I’m really, _really_ not an outdoorsy person okay?” Dustin said. “Like, I like nature when it’s like the woods around the track: easily walkable, already cleared by man. But I couldn’t go back off grounds, and I _was_ not going to run off into the middle of the Academy woods. And my bike was right there!”

“So you drove over it?!”

Dustin nodded. “Backed over it, really,” he said. “And when I handed it back to Sensei, he didn’t even look at it! He just looked me in the face and pointed to Earth. I was crushed. I mean it!” Dustin insisted as Blake began to laugh again. “How was I supposed to know Earth Air Ninjas have a history of ‘trailblazers’ trying to destroy their sheets?”

“What- what’s the point of this again?” Blake said as he started to control his breathing again.

“The point is that I’m an actual _wrecking ball_ _of a ninja_ ,” Dustin said. “If I seem grounded, it’s because I’ve gotten really good at saying, ‘yeah, this sucks, but screw being a moody goober, I’m going to rock this!’ And that’s what you gotta do to bro: you just gotta say, ‘screw Lothor, I’m rocking my brother’s world!”

“Ah—”

“Oh, wait, that- that came out wrong,” Dustin said.

Blake laughed. “Thanks Dustin,” he said as he got up and walked towards the front of the cave.

“You’re welcome,” Dustin said as he got up to follow him, hearing Blake call out to the others to get ready to find Hunter.

 

***

 

It didn’t take long.

“So let me get this straight,” Tori was saying to Blake. “We can’t reach Ninja Ops because this place doesn’t exist.”

“Yeah, Portico Island rises from sea like every 200 years or something,” Blake replied. “So it’s not exactly on the grid or anything.”

“And then it sinks again.”

“I did say it was kinda harsh.”

“Is anyone else worried that we haven’t seen Hunter for hours?” Dustin asked.

“Not me,” Shane admitted. “I could use the break from getting my butt whipped. I mean, no offense, but your bro’s not exactly playing well with others these days.”

“One day you’ll be glad Hunter has all those powers,” Blake replied.

“Yeah, but, for now he seems weirdly into the idea of slamming me around,” Shane said.

“You said it,” Dustin muttered, resisting the urge to suggest who Hunter could slam instead.

“Hey, how did you guys get Ranger powers anyway?” Tori asked. “I mean, there can’t be that many morphers around.”

“I don’t know how many there are, but we got ours from Sensei Oromino, the head of the Thunder Academy,” Blake answered. “Sensei had adopted us after our parents died, and when Lothor attacked the Thunder Academy, he gave us the morphers right before Lothor abducted the Academy in ninja orbs.”

“Okay, so, when you go in one of those ball things, what does it feel like?” Dustin asked. “Is it cool, like going off a freestyle ramp, or—”

“Dustin!” Tori said. “Not really the point.”

“But when else am I gonna find out?”

“How about after we rescue everyone?”

“I’m guessing that’s when Lothor lied about us killing your parents and Hunter went all medieval on us,” Shane said to Blake.

Blake winced. “You gotta understand, Hunter’s a good person, really,” Blake insisted. “But if he believes something’s wrong, he won’t stop until he sets it right, and whatever that weird beam thing did to him, he obviously sees us as being wrong.”

“But you snapped out of the beam,” Tori said.

“I guess I had more help remembering who my friends are,” Blake said to her, causing Tori to blush.

Dustin rolled his eyes. _Great_ , he thought to himself as he walked. _I’m third-wheeling it on a sinking, reeking island. We better run into Hunter soon._

“You guys, check it out!” Blake said suddenly, pointing down towards the end of the outcropping where a group of figures stood. “I bet that’s them!”

 

 

_March 14, 2003, Even More Time Later_

They had barely morphed when Blake called a Ninja Shadow Battle, and unlike before, the combined force of the four Rangers challenged through what was one of the most complicated ninja techniques Dustin knew pf was enough to swiftly defeat Super Toxipod.

“I’m going after Hunter,” Blake cried out, starting to run away from the Wind ninjas.

“We’ll take care of Choobo,” Tori told him.

“Is it sad that I like this fight better?” Dustin asked Shane as they moved.

“Nah,” Shane reassured him as they struck at the alien ninja over the comms. “Always better fighting enemies instead of our friends.”

“True that,” Dustin confirmed.

They kept fighting until Choobo ran away.

“I guess he didn’t feel like sticking around for an encore,” Shane said.

“Man, why do I have this sudden craving for seafood?” Dustin asked as he de-morphed.

“Dude, what’s with all the questions today?”

“I dunno Shane, maybe I’m just feeling it more?”

“Guys, look, there’s Blake and Hunter!” Tori said, causing the other two to turn around and see the Bradley brothers lying together on the sand, exhausted.

 _Thank Zordon this is over_ , Dustin thought, feeling a wave of relief pass over him as he followed Tori and Shane over.

“Come on Bro,” Blake was saying, pulling his brother into a hug. “Stay with me.”

“Dude, I’m going to need to breathe at some point here,” Dustin heard Hunter gasp out at last.

“Looks like he’s back to being Good Hunter,” Tori said as they watched the brothers hug each other.

“About time,” Dustin told her.

Just then, Dustin heard Shane’s morpher go off.

“Cam?” he heard Shane ask. “Is that you?”

“No, it’s your phone company,” replied the sarcastic voice Dustin had grown to love, “calling to ask if you’re happy with your long-distance service.”

“All right!” cheered Dustin.

“Is he always this, ah, funny?” Hunter whispered to Shane, looking suspiciously at the morpher on Shane’s arm.

Shane shook his head. “Not always,” he answered, before more loudly saying. “We’re doing great Cam, thanks for asking.”

“Are the Thunder Rangers with you? Dad wants to know.”

“They are.”

“Excellent,” Sensei’s voice could be heard saying over the morpher. “I must speak with them upon their return.”

“Count on it,” Hunter replied.

“By the way,” Cam continued. “You’re on an island, and it’s sinking fast. You have to get off, and the atmospheric pressure is too unstable to use gliders.”

“What about the Zords?” Blake asked after a moment. “They should be able to handle the water pressure.”

“Let me take a quick look,” Cam said, the sound of keyboard typing accompanying his words, “and…yes, it looks they can. The zords are on their way,” Cam answered.

“Whoo-hoo Academy grounds here we come!” Dustin shouted.

“Thank you,” Hunter was saying to Shane as he turned off his morpher. “It means a lot, the way you all stood up for me.”

“That’s what friends do,” Shane said simply. “So let’s go before this turns into a group hug.”

 

***

 

_March 14, 2003, 8:30 PM_

“Welcome home,” Cam said as the Rangers walked into Ninja Ops.

“Man that was one rough swim!” Dustin complained. “I mean, I love my seat warmers, but bro it felt like Africa in my zord!”

“Hey, lay off Cam, it’s not his fault you couldn’t get the air conditioning to work,” said Tori. “Thanks for getting us home, Cam.”

Cam smiled. “You’re quite welcome, Tori,” he said back.

“Well, I’m still sore,” said Dustin, settling himself onto one of cushion seats around the Ninja ops main table.

“Are you all right, Rangers?” asked Sensei Watanabe.

“We can stand on our own,” said Shane, gesturing at everyone around him. “Other than that, I think we’ve all had better days.”

“We have talked to your parents, as the hour was growing late,” said Sensei Watanabe. “You may stay here for the night.”

“Huh?” Tori checked her watch. “Oh my Ninjor, it’s 8:30! We’ve _never_ been out fighting this late before. Thanks Sensei,” she added as she collapsed onto a cushion across from Dustin.

“8:30!” Dustin shouted. “Dude, no wonder I feel so out of it: I’m practically _starving_! Hey, who’s up for seafood, I have this _killer_ craving.”

“We also talked with a ‘Kelly’ over at Storm Chargers,” Cam told Dustin. “She’s willing not to fire you for missing what turned out to be the biggest surprise winter gear sale in store history if you pull double shifts tomorrow.”

“…and there goes my appetite.”

“Well, I don’t know about you guys,” said Tori, “but I’ll eat just about anything right now.”

“Seafood it is,” ruled Shane. “So, where do we order out from?”

“I think we’ll pass,” said Hunter.

“Bro,” Blake told him.

Hunter sighed. “No, you’re right,” he said. “You know what? Call me when food’s here. I’m gonna walk outside for a bit.”

Dustin watched him walk out. _Dude shouldn’t be left all alone after today_ , he thought.

“Hey, Tori, you order,” Dustin heard himself say, gesturing towards the front door. “I’m just gonna…”

“Yeah, okay,” Tori said.

“Really?”

Tori grinned. “You fixed one,” she whispered, softly enough that Dustin knew Shane and Blake (who had begun to sprawl out on the Ninja Ops table) wouldn’t be able to hear her. “Go fix the other.”

Dustin quickly got up— _wow, yep, rough ride,_ he thought, his muscles aching from the motion _—_ and slowly walked out of Ninja Ops after Hunter. Behind him he could hear Cam ask what had happened, losing the thread of what Shane was saying after he stepped out.

He’d just been walking a few minutes towards the front of the Academy when he heard a voice call out, “dude, go away. I’m not up for fake biker talk right now.”

Dustin paused. In front of him was Hunter, standing right onto the step that Dustin knew would lead down towards the waterfall and to the portal out.

“Okay, first off, I legit talk this way all the time bro, get used to it,” Dustin told him. “Second, I hate to break it to you, but if you’re _that_ desperate for seafood, you’re not gonna find it in the river. Turns out fish aren’t really fans of ninjas.”

“I wasn’t— Dimitria, are you _serious_ right now?”

“I am _always_ serious about my food.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “I want to be alone right now,” he said.

“Let me guess,” Dustin said after a moment. “This is the part where I let you go off and angst over how you’re a horrible older brother because a mighty ESA Ninja—”

“—ESA?”

“—Evil Space Alien, not the point here,” Dustin said smoothly. “A mighty ESA Ninja blasted you multiple times over with mind control beams, robbing you of any ability to decide anything, and turning you against everyone you love. You feel guilty about it, even though we’re talking about a dude who _stole_ two ninja academies and regularly manages to break the law of conservation by supersizing other ESAs like practically every time we fight one, because somehow that makes sense, and there’s no one anybody would expect you to solve it single handedly. Am I right?”

“…You Earth Ninjas are really annoying aren’t you.”

“We don’t do unnecessary bro angst,” Dustin retorted, “but I like to think being honest about what is our fault and what isn’t works for us.”

“What,” Hunter growled, and Dustin found himself suddenly facing a very angry looking Hunter, his eyes almost crackling as he turned and walked over to where Dustin stood by the gates to Ninja Ops. “Did you just say?”

“I said it’s not your fault,” Dustin said bluntly, “and I’m not going to let you go off and brood on your own like some sort of sorrowful falcon.”

“I’m. Not. Shane.”

“No. No you’re not. You know how I know that?”

“How?”

“For starters, he prefers to brood on half-pipes,” Dustin said.

“Boarders,” Hunter said, rolling his eyes.

“Also, you are _way_ prettier.”

“I- what?” Hunter said, a look of confusion passing over his face.

Dustin nodded. “It’s true, you are,” he said, hoping his voice sounded more neutral than he felt. “Like, don’t get me wrong, Shane’s not ugly, but you are definitely prettier.”

“I- how- what does that have to do with anything?” Hunter stammered.

“…It’s a sign your life doesn’t totally suck?”

“I’m pretty sure saying all I have are my looks means my life sucks.”

Dustin sighed. “Repeat after me: today was a bad day.”

Hunter stared at the Yellow Ranger. “Today was a bad day,” he said slowly.

“Tomorrow will be a better day.”

“Tomorrow will be a better day.”

“Dustin’s hot.”

“Dus-hey!”

“Almost got you,” Dustin said, smiling.

“Yeah, you did,” Hunter said quietly.

For a moment there was silence, broken only by the sound of the Blue Bay Harbor breeze, the namesake of the Wind Academy, passing over the Academy trees in the evening stillness.

“It’s way too green here,” Hunter said suddenly. “The Thunder Academy is practically in the desert, south from here, where the hills turn into mountains. We don’t have all these trees.”

“Yeah, harbor water tends to make things wet and wild,” Dustin said unthinkingly. “But I bet you had wood out there too.”

“You keep saying things like that, I’m going to have to start asking your intentions,” Hunter huffed.

Dustin shrugged, knowing that the other ninja could see what would otherwise be an invisible gesture in the night air. “I mean, I may have told Blake to rock your world during my pep-talk with him,” he admitted.

“Wow.”

“Yeah so, at least I’m consistent?”

“I mean, back at the Thunder Academy, we’d have said you weren’t the straightest edge in the batch.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m- I’m bi,” Dustin whispered, thinking about what Shane had told him. “Is that a problem?”

“No!” Hunter shouted, sounding alarmed. “No it’s not, it’s just…not something that we got away with at the Thunder Academy,” Hunter mumbled back.

“What would you have done if you could get away with it?”

“…so many things.”

“Yeah?”

“Blake’s better at people,” Hunter told Dustin, rocking on the balls of his feet as he told. “I’m not. And that whole anger thing Shane said?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s not wrong. I did have to see the Thunder Academy therapist for a while to try to calm down some.”

Dustin blinked. “You guys had a trained therapist on staff?”

“Anger and stress can cause you to call more lightning than you can handle.”

“Oh.”

“Probably why I got so good at the lightning style,” Hunter said. “I’d take blasting people’s minds and make them stop thinking for a bit than do some sitting meditation thing. Feels so much better to let go like that, you know? It’s like riding a bike, only with less metal.”

The way he said it gave Dustin an idea. “Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“This has been a bad weird day, right?”

“Yeah?”

“So if I do something really weird right now—”

“Dude, _that’s_ comforting—”

“—even though I totally want to, like, _seriously_ would be okay doing it under less weird circumstances—”

“Ah—”

“And we can talk about it later, if you want,” Dustin continued walking closer to Hunter, “could we chalk it up to the endless fighting and dimension hopping?”

“Yes?” Hunter asked hesitantly. “What do you want to do?”

“Something that’ll blast your mind and help you to stop thinking for a bit.”

Hunter huffed. “Pretty sure you can’t channel lightning, Dustin.”

“Watch me,” Dustin said, and with that he leaned over and kissed Hunter in the nighttime air.


	12. Chapter VIII: The Wind Just Stripped Me Bare

  _“The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high.”_

  * Jean Baudrillard



 

 

_March 15, 2003, 7:22 AM_

_Ugh, morning fish breath_ , Shane thought grumbly as he woke up, the taste of fish feeling oily in his mouth.

It had been about 45 minutes before Dustin and Hunter had walked in holding boxes of seafood and sushi from Garcia’s Golden Barracuda. The boxes had held both the regular, “California,” rice-and-seaweed wrapped ones Shane knew was a favorite of Harbor tourists, who’d buy them up like mad at the touristy trap restaurants along the Blue Bay Harbor Boardwalk, and the fancier unwrapped ones that apparently Cam and his father were fond of.

Shane never thought the image of a rodent ( _guinea_ _pig,_ Shane reminded himself, _guinea pig_ ) solemnly munching on raw sashimi was an image he’d ever see.

Not that Shane noticed the taste of any it himself. Fighting space aliens and mind-warped ninjas across a non-existent island had left all the Rangers starving, and after forcing himself off the table, Shane joined the others in inhaling the food from where they had wound up sitting on the floor. Tori was sitting next a suddenly bashful-seeming Blake, and Dustin had sprawled out on the floor with his head on Hunter’s lap, laughing as he and the Crimson tried to steal sushi from each other. Shane had sat with his back against the Ninja Ops main computer stand, silently splitting shrimp with Cam, who seemed perfectly content sharing space with a Red Ranger too exhausted to do much more than eat on automatic.

And it was…well, not unfair really, but it did make Shane feel a little left out.

 

_[“Noisy, aren’t they?” Cam had whispered to him._

_“Meh,” Shane shrugged. “I heard them all be louder during the last Summer Olympics.”_

_“Yeah, I guess you all would watch that.”_

_“What, you don’t?”_

_Cam shook his head. “I caught the recordings once the Academy summer students are asleep.”_

_“Dude, it’s not the same.”_

_“Yeah, well, you try watching the archery competition when there’s sword training going on.”]_

 

Shane had snickered, and that had been the end of any attempt at conversation. For a while he watched as one by one his friends had begun to fall asleep, Dustin being the first, until the last thing Shane could remember was resting putting his head for a moment against the Ops console.

_Guess I must’ve slid down over the night_ , Shane thought to himself, feeling the imprint from the console on his face.

“Shane?” a voice whispered.

“Hmm?” Shane replied, turning to see Cam standing there, dressed in a light green t-shirt and soft white pants that Shane thought must’ve been one of the Academy’s spare training uniforms. “Wha?”

Cam huffed. “Morning,” he said softly.

“Morning.”

“Sleep well?”

“Ye-ah, sorry—”

“Please, yawn away. You, ah, mind if I—?”

“Hmm? Oh, no,” Shane said, slowly getting up so that Cam could more easily pull out the chair Shane always saw him in sitting in before placing down next to the keyboard a mug Shane hadn’t noticed Cam holding. It was a black one, filled with a dark liquid that smelled like cinnamon and spice, with the phrase “Ninjas do it in the shadows” written in red lettering along the outside.

Shane stood there, leaning against the side of the console for a bit as his own brain to boot up. Eventually he began to take in the sight of Tori sleeping on a futon on the other side of the hall, Blake firmly sleeping curled up on his side a noticeable schoolroom ruler away from her ( _oh good, they left room for Kendrix_ , Shane thought to himself, glad Dustin had taught him that reference.) Tori and Blake looked fairly comfortable, even though Shane was pretty sure that the tight way they’d both curled up meant the two blues would be nursing a sore back once they woke up.

_Speaking of Dustin_ , _where’s he and- oh,_ Shane thought, glancing across the floor of the room only to find them when he raised his head a bit more. Somehow the Yellow and Crimson Rangers had wound up not on the floor but on the debriefing table itself, Hunter lying flat on his back while Dustin sprawled out on top of him, his mop of black hair nuzzling itself into the space between Hunter’s shoulder and neck.

“I know,” he heard Cam mumble quietly from the side. “It’s adorable in the worst way. That talk with Dad’s going to be a long one.”

“Yeah,” Shane whispered back. He was pretty sure Cam meant that the talk was now going to include a shovel talk, not the “of _course_ Dustin curls up with the guy with gorgeous eyes and a fighting style you wish you had the muscular limber for” one Shane’s sleep-deprived brain was currently giving him, but he wasn’t about to confirm that.

“You might want to go down the hall to the kitchen,” Cam murmured, gesturing to his right. “The risk of waking anyone’s much lower. There’s coffee, hot water, cereal, milk, waffles, pop-tarts…”

“What are you going to be doing?” Shane said softly as he shifted off the console onto his own two feet and stretched his arms, feeling himself waking up more as he did.

“Monitoring the feed,” Cam replied. “Choobo’s still out there, after all, and I think I can do this silently enough.”

“Right,” Shane smirked, risking a hand to quietly clap Cam on the book, the gesture making Cam look at the Red.

“What was that for?”

“For being a righteous bro who stayed up I don’t-even-know-how-many hours to find an off-the-charts island and save our butts,” Shane whispered back.

“That’s—”

“And for a hearty, caffeinated breakfast,” Shane hurriedly added, feeling like Cam was about to be _Cam_ and pretend that everything he did was completely easy and not something that only the unique combination of being a technological genius and probably nigh-unholy Ninja offspring could pull off.

“You’re welcome,” Cam said after a beat.

Shane nodded and started to turn, intending to go down the small side hallway to the kitchen, when his brain finally registered what Cam had said. “Pop-tarts?” he asked.

“Not all of us are adrenaline junkies. Some of us just like sweet stuff,” Cam teased, making Shane snicker. On the table Dustin shifted in response, and Shane watched as Hunter twitched his hand possessively over Dustin’s back.

“Right, going now,” Shane whispered to Cam, before turning to go down the hall.

 

 

_March 15, 2003, 1:14 PM_

“This totally bites!” Shane grumbled to Tori and Dustin.

“Dude, we know!” they shouted back, exasperated.

Shane rolled his eyes. They had all been gathered in Ninja Ops—Tori and Dustin had been working on homework while Shane had been trying to practice kick-flipping his skateboard— when Cam had picked up on Choobo on the monitoring feed:

 

[ _“I don’t think he’s there for the scenery,” Cam had said, pointing to the large white alien general wandering in the woods._

_“I dunno, that place is kinda cool, especially this time of year. What?” Dustin had said. “It totally is!”_

_“Can you reach Hunter and Blake?” Tori had asked._

_Cam tapped a few keys on the keyboard before shaking his head. “It looks like they’re offline.”_

_“Offline?” Shane had asked, stepping off his skateboard, the board itself coming to halt at the edge of the Ninja Ops table._

_“I can find their bikes, but they appear to have left them on the beach.”_

_Shane looked at Dustin, who shook his head. “Blake and Hunter may be unreliable, but there’s no way they’d leave their bikes behind,” Shane said aloud. “You think Choobo’s already got them?”_

_“Only way to find out is to take him out,” Tori said._

_“Hey, try knocking out his backpack,” Cam said as they morphed. “If he’s holding them anywhere, it’d be in there.”_

_“Got it,” Shane confirmed before they had streaked out_.]

 

“I’m just saying,” Shane said as he once again tried to throw a punch at Choobo’s backpack, the alien dodging around him on the forest floor as the Red Ranger moved. “We spent all yesterday fighting this guy off on an island, I was _hoping_ for a break.”

“Look bro, I’m not exactly up for this either,” Dustin said back to him. “I mean, I just wanted to drop off the new shipment of transitions Kell had gotten and head back to Storm Chargers and get some homework done, you know? But we’re here, so, you know, whatever.”

“Thought Hunter was doing that,” Shane replied.

“Why would Hunter- hey!” Tori said, shifting to launch an attack. “Did you get Blake and Hunter jobs as _stock boys?”_

“Yeah, did it this morning,” Dustin said. “Got into Storm Chargers his morning, and Kell was all, ‘well, look what the cat dragged in,” and I was all, “I know, I was kinda stuck in the middle of nowhere and it was totally last minute, I swear,” and then she’s all “Kay, I’ll buy that this time, but why’re the Bradley Brothers here—”

“And long story short she hired them too,” Shane said as he lunged back.

“That’s great!” Tori said excitedly. “I mean, I’m glad they’re going to be hanging around a lot more.”

“Hopefully not _too_ much,” Shane muttered.

“Wow, okay, _someone_ woke up on the wrong side of the Ops this morning,” Dustin replied to Shane.

Shane sighed, the sound crackling over the communication line. “Sorry, it’s just, I’m tired of dealing with people right now,” Shane said, throwing a kick that managed to break one the straps on Choobo’s backpack. “I really need this to be over.”

Suddenly the forest shook violently, throwing the wind rangers around into a heap.

“What—”

“Bradleys,” Shane gritted out, bracing himself as Thunder Ninjas erupted out of the backpack.

“We’re back!” Hunter said.

“That was just weird,” Blake added.

“You guys okay?” Tori asked.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Hunter answered.

“You guys ready to kick butt?” Shane heard Dustin say.

“Oh yeah!” Blake added as he and Hunter morphed.

The battle ended quickly. Choobo did manage to put on a fight—and Shane _really_ hadn’t liked the attempt at puppeteering them, seriously, did aliens have _no_ sense of consent?—but even Shane could tell Choobo didn’t have much of a chance against all five of them, and soon the general was collapsing, exploding into pieces like all the other aliens they’d fought.

“At last,” Shane said as he de-morphed.

“Yeah, that was- Hunter!” Dustin shouted.

Shane glanced at where the Crimson Ranger stood wobbly, de-morphing to reveal they Hunter looking badly beaten up.

“I think I’m done,” Hunter said right before he collapsed backwards onto the ground.

“Cam, we’re bringing Hunter in,” Shane said into his morpher as Dustin and Tori grabbed Hunter and began to streak, Blake following behind him.

“I’m prepping the medical kit as we speak. See you in five,” Cam said as Shane began to streak himself, arriving shortly after everyone else at Ninja Ops just in time to see Hunter spread out on the Ops table as he had been this morning, only in significantly more pain.

“I thought being a Ranger meant this stuff didn’t hurt so much,” Hunter was saying.

“You were hit and electrocuted, repeatedly, by an overgrown, ESA general,” Cam replied, taking out a small box of what Shane guessed was some kind of healing salve. “Even with the suit and your ninja powers covering for you, it’s gonna hurt. Now lie back and let me do my work.”

“ESA?” Shane heard Blake ask.

“Evil Space Alien,” Dustin replied before Shane could. “We say it like it’s in all caps because they’re that bad.”

“Great,” Hunter muttered, raising his head to look at Dustin. “The medic’s using ye- ouch!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Cam said dryly as Hunter’s head thumped back onto the table. “What part of _lie back_ was hard for you?”

“Feel like you have something out for me,” Hunter replied.

“Dude,” Dustin started. “Cam wouldn’t—”

“Yeah, like I’m going to take this opportunity to use _ninja salve_ to rain down my vengeance for the death of Sensei Titanus.”

“Sensei- wait a second, you’re _that_ Cam?!” Hunter shouted starting to get up.

“Yeah no,” Shane said suddenly as he walked over to push Hunter down, trying to ignore feeling the sensation of a cotton t-shirt dragging lightly over a body that Shane had only ever laid a hand on in the middle of combat in favor of making sure that the Crimson Ranger wouldn’t move and interfere with Cam’s work. “Be in shock in a horizontal position, thanks.”

“Yes, yes I am,” Cam said shortly after. “Glad you remember me at last.”

“Um, I have no memory of this place,” Blake said after a while, making Tori snort. “What?” he asked her.

“You do know you just quoted the Lord of the Rings,” Tori replied.

“Really?”

Tori stared at Blake. “How do you not—”

“You would’ve been too little to remember,” Hunter was saying to his brother. “It was right…right after Sensei Omino adopted us.”

“Yes,” the Rangers heard a voice say, only to see Sensei Watanabe pushing his cart in from the hallway, using a long staff to move it like a gondola across the Ninja Ops floor. “Sensei Omino wanted you and your brother to know that it was possible to live on an Academy grounds with a ninja master for a father, and thought meeting Cam would be a good way to do it.”

“It was,” Hunter said, the ghost of a smile crossing his face.

“Yeah, for _you_ ,” Cam said, slowly wiping off the rest of the salve before putting it back in the kit. “ _I_ lost Sensei Titanus.”

“It was an accident!” Hunter replied with a laugh, the sound making Shane feel funny, like he was witnessing something a tad too intimate. “How was I supposed to know that your favorite stuffed animal wasn’t lightning proofed like all the Thunder Academy toys?”

“How _didn’t_ you—”

“As I recall,” Sensei Watanabe interrupted. “The debate over this very fact lasted approximately one hour until your brother Blake came in and demanded that you get him ice cream from our cafeteria, at which point my son decided to demonstrate he’d learned more than I had thought he had by flying the ice cream into the tent.”

“Dude, Cam air ninja’d?” Dustin asked excitedly. “Shane, Cam knows air ninja moves!”

“He probably knows _all_ our moves Dustin, he lives here,” Tori said, sounding like someone who had honestly spent time puzzling out whether Cam could fight or not, something Shane knew had surprised her when Cam had helped to rescue her from that greenhouse alien. “Nice one though Blake.”

“I probably just wanted ice cream,” Blake admitted. “I would’ve been way too little to know it would end the shouting.”

“Nevertheless, it was successful,” Sensei said, “as the debate ended until now.”

“There’s nothing to debate,” Cam insisted. “Hunter _charbroiled_ my favorite stuffed animal.”

“I was small!” Hunter shouted.

“Not _that_ small.”

“Dustin,” Shane said laughing, “help me separate these two before this gets ugly.”

“Right behind you bro,” Dustin said. “Though I gotta say, I’m totally with Cam on this one. If someone had destroyed my Titanus growing up, they’d’ve been a dead man. I mean, if I’d had one.”

 

 

_March 21, 2003, 11:15 AM_

Shane groaned as he stared at his locker. “Come on, just a few more hours till Spring Break,” he said, trying to convince himself to get to class. “Then we’re going to chill on Tori’s zord, and it’s all going to be good.”

The last few days since the demise of Choobo had been relatively free of aliens, but filled with other things. Pre-Break school assignments crammed together to take up a boatload of time, to the point that Shane had almost lost track of time itself as he used every spare thirty minutes he could find to work on them. Sensei had kindly let them do minimum sparring so they could rest some, but Shane knew Dustin and Tori were as wiped as he was. Tori was even more wiped, coming into school and flatly telling Shane that she’d barely managed to catch any sleep between writing essays and her dad shouting at someone on the TV saying something about a war in Iraq. “I have no idea where that is, or what’s happening,” Tori had said before Shane, seeing her bat a hand at the lock on her locker, had leaned over and turned it to her combination for her. “But I’m pretty sure it’s not worth me losing sleep over when I have aliens to fight, you know?”

Blake was also exhausted, as it turned out.

“Dude, I know I’m home-schooled,” he had said Tuesday evening as he came into _Storm Chargers_ to cover the shift after Shane’s. “But you know it’s normally on the school side, not the home side?”

“Hunter’s not having much luck finding you guys a place?” Shane had replied, opening the counter door to let Blake head into the backroom, where Shane had been marking his shift as being over on the shift calendar since the time clock he’d normally use to punch out on had died earlier that day.

“Yeah, no. Turns out an 18 year old with a kid high-school brother isn’t someone people want to rent out an apartment to, even if you both have jobs,” Blake said with a sigh. “I dunno, maybe we should’ve said yes to Hannah and Factory Blue instead of Rangering.”

Shane shook his head. “No, you definitely made the right call,” he said. “You sure you don’t want to live at ninja ops?”

“No way man,” Blake insisted. “Growing up on one ninja academy is enough for me.”

“Okay, ah, you try the surfer shacks yet?”

“The what?”

“The Harbor surfer lodge cabin things,” Shane had said, pointing vaguely out the door. “They’re packed full during the season, but you can probably call and rent out one for, like, six months at a time or something if you get it now before reservations start coming in.”

“Dude, that’s- I’ll tell Hunter,” Blake said, sounding relieved. “ _Thank_ you.”

“Meh, no prob,” Shane had said.

But the exhaustion of everything was still no excuse for last Wednesday evening:

 

_[“You ever hear of cutting your loses?” Shane had grunted out to Hunter. They had been sparring along the Academy grounds, first outside along the crater’s edge until they had worked their way into the Ninja Ops main room itself, Tori and Dustin going to stand next to Cam and Sensei to watch the fight._

_“What losses?” Hunter had said. “It’s just sparring.”_

_“Yeah well, if you can’t keep up,” Shane had said, throwing a punch towards Hunter’s face, “I can get my sister over here.”_

_“Your sister would happily kick both your butts,” Tori had shouted to them._

_Hunter smirked. “You’re a regular comedian Shane,” he replied as he dodged Shane’s punch before kicking out, nearly sweeping Shane off his feet. “That’s why I love you so much.”_

God I wish _, Shane had thought absently, the moment being just long enough for Hunter to grab Shane by the shirt and shove him back hard against the edge of the Ninja Ops table, the wooden panel digging into Shane’s spine. “You’re dead,” Shane had growled as he began to reach out to try to put Hunter into a headlock.”_

_“Enough!” Sensei’s voice called out._

_The two boys froze as Sensei wheeled his cart towards them. “We’ve talked about the Wind and Thunder Ninjas working together as one,” he said patiently. “What have we said?”_

_“A competitive spirit is healthy—” Shane started._

_“—as long as you don’t sacrifice honor and friendship to win,” Hunter finished._

_“Which I was about to do.”_

_“In your dreams skateboarder,” Hunter said, pulling his arms back as he shifted his stance. The gesture was enough to draw Shane’s attention to how close Hunter was, barely separated from Shane’s own chest by a thin piece of air that seemed pierce with every breath Shane took._

_“Since you seem to be having difficulties working together,” Sensei interrupted, “Let us try a different approach. First, hug each other.”_

_“Hug?” Shane asked distractedly._

_“Yeah, Shane, hug. It’s this thing where you wrap your arms around each other,” Cam told them._

_Hunter rolled his eyes. “Shall we?”_

_Shane didn’t say anything, choosing instead to reach out and pull Hunter even closer, Shane’s hands sliding under Hunter’s arm to embrace him around the waist._

Kendrix he feels good _, Shane thought to himself, enjoying the press and weight of the other man against him, a soft, piney scent briefly fluttering by Shane’s nose._

_“Now let go of each other,” Sensei said, “and drop and give me fifty.”_

_“Fifty what?” Hunter asked, raising his head from where it had rested on Shane’s shoulder (_ and how did I miss him doing that? _Shane found himself wondering.)_

_“Push-ups, bro,” Dustin said. “It’s a fav of Sensei’s.”_

_“Yeah, how else do you think Dustin got those rock-hard abs of his?” Tori teased._

_“Yeah, I- Hey!”]_

 

The moment had passed well enough, but Shane knew that Sensei shouldn’t have had to interrupt a sparring session with a hug-out like that, as if they were both novice ninjas with way too much ego to spare. _The problem,_ Shane thought to himself as he trudged through class, _is that Hunter’s…Hunter. He’s smart, strong. Definitely a better big brother than Parker, and_ totally _way more Dustin’s friend than mine._

Not that Shane held that against him. Dustin was righteous, and Shane could see how if anyone would break the broody monster that was Hunter it’d be Dustin.

Shane just wished he could’ve done that too.

Suddenly Shane’s morpher rang. “Sweet, saved by morpher” Shane muttered as he pressed the button to active the comm line. “Cam?”

“Shane, There’s an ESA downtown, and you and Hunter are the closet.”

“On it,” Shane confirmed as he shifted to streak out of the school, stopping just as he caught sight of Hunter, who stood looking at— “is that a Kangaroo?!”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” Hunter said, raising his morpher hand. “Time to morph.”

“Hey, _I_ say when it’s time to morph.”

“ _What_?”

“It’s not time to morph yet,” Shane said, trying to resist the urge to fight the Crimson Ranger. “You don’t even know what you’re fighting!”

“He’s a kangaroo!”

“He’s an alien who _looks_ like one,” Shane corrected. “You don’t know what he’ll do.”

“Are you going to wait until he blasts us and see how we survive it de-morphed?” Hunter shouted just as it launched a ball of fire at the pair of Reds, causing them to dive to the ground.

“ _Now_ it’s time to morph,” said Shane, rising from where he’d crouched down on the ground (and noticing in the process that, like him, Hunter had escaped being burned) to morph.

“Glad you agree,” Hunter said, morphing hurriedly.

“Great, now— hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Shane asked as Hunter began to move.

“What do you mean what _I’m_ doing?” Hunter shouted over the helmet communications line as he charged the kangaroo, dodging fire balls to strike him with the Crimson Ranger’s staff.

“I’ve got him!” Shane shouted as he followed him with his sword.

“No, I do!”

“Dude, let me help!”

“I don’t _need_ your help!”

“ _What?”_

Shane was sure Hunter would reply, but they were interrupted by a bright flash of energy. When the spots had cleared from his eyes, Shane couldn’t see the kangaroo anymore.

_Argh!_ Shane thought to himself in frustration as he ran towards where Hunter stood, pulling his visor back as moved. “What, you let him bail! I would’ve pounded that guy and his tail!”

“ _You_?” Hunter glared at him, having pulled back his own visor as well. “All you did was get in my way!”

“Ah, this is so _lame_ ,” Shane grumbled. “I’m going for a run.”

“I’m coming with you,” Hunter said.

Shane rolled his eyes. “I really doubt the Harbor Boardwalk is going to need extra protection.”

“There’s a kick-boxing kangaroo alien out there,” Hunter said. “So I’m coming with you.”

Shane shrugged. “Let’s go,” he said, beginning to run.

 

 

_March 21, 2003, 12:00 PM_

“Whoa!” Shane said, slowly sitting onto a bench by the boardwalk path. “Good run!”

“Wait,” Hunter panted as he sat down besides Shane. “Did you just give me props?”

Shane laughed. “Don’t get all weird on me.”

“I wasn’t. I was just…you think maybe Sensei has a point about us working together?”

“The guy’s usually pretty right on. That’s why he’s the teacher.”

Hunter scowled. “Blake and I are used to being on our own,” he said, carefully looking across the boardwalk. “No parents, no sensei, no one to answer to except for each other.”

“Hey look,” Shane replied, putting a hand onto his shoulder. “You got us now. All of us. And we look out for each other.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Shane stated. “Think of us as the circle of older siblings you never thought you’d have.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Wish Leanne was here to hear you say that,” he muttered. “That why you told Blake about the shacks?”

“No,” Shane said, making a note to ask who Leanne was if he ever got a chance. “I told Blake about the shacks because you both deserve a nice place to live without worrying about how you can afford it.”

“Seriously?”

“You deserve nice things Hunter,” Shane said firmly. _And I wish I could give them to you_ , Shane added silently to himself, _but I still want you to have them, even if I can’t._

For a moment the pair just sat there. “You know,” Hunter said at last, “I once tried to get Blake to help me learn how to skateboard?”

“And?”

Hunter sighed. “He told me,” he said, shifting on the bench to look at Shane more easily, “that I should get a stunt double. Don’t laugh,” Hunter added when he saw Shane beginning to snicker.

“No never,” Shane replied, “but dude, for what it’s worth? Dustin practically cried when I tried to get him to teach me how to bike.”

Hunter groaned. “How many bales did you hit?”

“All of them,” Shane said as Hunter started to laugh. “It was horrible.”

“We-we really shouldn’t swap rides.”

“Or we should practice with each other.” Shane said. “You know, let our mutual horribleness lead us to a greater strength and all that.”

“Well looky-here,” a voice called out, “if it isn’t the dully dynamic duo of radical Rangers Reds. Better get those bodacious bods off the bench, ‘cause it’s bopping time with Bopp-a-Roo!”

_What the_ , Shane thought as he looked around until at least he saw the kangaroo.

“So its name is Bopp-a-roo,” Shane said to Hunter as they stood up from the bench.

“Looks like somebody paid for an upgrade,” said Hunter, seeing the kangaroo as well. “I’ll call Cam for backup, you get started?”

“Right,” agreed Shane, who quickly morphed and started running towards Bopp-a-Roo.

Just like before— like all their battles in the past week ( _Kendrix why_ , _don’t we deserve a break?_ Shane thought to himself) — Bopp-a-roo turned out to be more of a time sink than a challenge. Sure, the alien had called for back-up, but once Tori, Blake, and Dustin had arrived the whole thing kinda de-evolved into a semi-unstructured free-for-all until Shane and Hunter discovered they could combine their strikes separately to create their own special red-colored strike, wiping out the kangaroo once and for all.

“So we don’t need to debrief or anything, right?” Dustin asked after the battle finished.

“Yes you do, Dustin,” Cam said over the morpher. “I do in fact need to know how it looked through your eyes, in case we ever face something like that again.”

“I really doubt there’s another alien kangaroo out there,” Shane said.

“I dunno man,” Blake told him. “Australia’s a really weird place.”

“Ugh, fine,” Dustin grumbled. “I just wanted to go to Tori’s zord already.”

“Wait, what?” Hunter asked, looking at the yellow.

“Oh yeah!” Tori said. “So, my zord hides out in town as a cruise ship—”

“A _cruise ship_?” Blake asked. “An- an actual— _”_

“Yeah,” Shane interrupted. “Dustin’s is part rollercoaster and part Ferris wheel.”

“And what’s yours, a hang glider?” Hunter asked Shane.

Shane smiled. “Fighter Jet.”

“What- how—”

“I can camouflage zords folks,” Cam interrupted, his voice somehow managing to sound exasperated over the morpher comm line.

“Dude, can you do _ours_?” Blake said, sounding excited. “Because they’re basically burying themselves under the ground right now.”

“It’ll be a challenge if they like erupting from underground so much, but I’ll look into it.”

“Wow, thanks,” Hunter said, sounding appreciative and impressed.

“Anyway, basically we’re going to be hanging out on my zord for the break,” Tori said. “Maybe not overnight, I mean I’m pretty sure my folks would flip if I said was sleeping with guys on a cruise liner, but definitely the rest of the time.”

“Yeah- hey!” Shane said. “You guys should totally come with!”

“That’s…really tempting,” Hunter started.

“Come on, you know want to slide on some board shirts and chill out, am I right Blake?” Dustin asked.

“I still don’t recall the part where I okayed this,” Cam said.

“Cam, we’ve been saying it for over a month. You’ve been overruled by now,” Shane said into his morpher. “Though you’re also welcome to join us, if Sensei can spare you.”

“It may do you some good Cameron,” they heard Sensei mutter.

“Dad, stay out of this.”

“I’m game,” Blake said.

“I… we kinda need to find us a place to live,” Hunter admitted. “I was going to spend the break checking out some of the surf shack places Shane told Blake about.”

“Surf shake place,” Tori grumbled as she rolled her eyes. “I swear, what is with you dry-boarders. They’re surfer _rentals_ ,” she continued before Shane could interrupt. “Two of them are open right now, only one’s still free for the next six months if you’re looking long term, and the rental place is right across from the marina entrance downtown.”

“She’s right. Nice one, wet-boarder,” Shane said, laughing inside at the look on Tori’s face.

“ _Wet_ -boarder? Hey, remember skater boy, _your_ sport wouldn’t exist without girls like _me_ inventing it.”

“I know.”

“Surfboard girls invented skateboards during the off-season,” Dustin explained when he saw the blank looks on Hunter’s and Blake’s faces. “Tori likes to remind us every once in while in case we forget.”

“Anyway,” Tori continued. “I’m pretty sure we, ah, could go down and book it fast before meeting on the ship if you want?”

“Yeah?” Hunter asked, running a hand along the back of his neck.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” Blake said to his brother.

Hunter sighed. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Shane confirmed, reaching out to shake Hunter’s hand.

Dustin clapped. “Alright, so that’s party of six on the Dolphin Cruise liner. Let’s do this!”

“Five,” Cam said.

“Six,” Tori said firmly, “even if I have to send Shane to haul you out.”

“It would be easier to monitor them if you were there,” Sensei said, his voice sounding surprisingly clear over the morpher’s speaker.

The rangers heard Cam sigh. “Fine, six,” he said, causing Dustin to let out a small whoop of joy.

“Alright,” Blake said. “Let’s do this!”


	13. Chapter IX: What’s Up with This Weather?

_“I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.”_

  * Florence Nightingale



 

 

_April 1, 2003, 9:30 PM_

Spring Break on Tori’s zord had been _awesome_. The California Blue Dolphin Cruise Liner had had eleven floors, with 3 outdoor pools and 2 Jacuzzi tubs on the top deck, along with an indoor and outdoors, top deck movie-theater, a stage that doubled as a concert hall, and an ice cream bar that had been open 24/7. And while the Wind Ninjas had families they had to go home to at night, Blake and Hunter had opted to spend the night on the ship, sleeping in one of the family suite rooms that had had a porch sticking out over the lower levels for better views of the Harbor for the whole week.

 

_[“Man, this is still bogus,” Dustin had complained. “We’ve been here the whole week, and you guys get all the nights.”_

_“Dustin, it’s not that big a deal to sleep at home,” Shane had said, looking out the window of their room towards where Hunter thought Tori and Cam had gone ashore so that Tori could drive Cam home before heading back herself._

_“But dude, we could be sleeping on a cruise ship!”_

_“Why don’t you?” Hunter had blurted out from where he’d been sitting on the couch._

_“Seriously, it’s not like there isn’t room for all of us,” Blake had added quickly, as if Hunter inviting two guys to spend the night with them was a totally normal thing for Hunter to do. “We can open up the couch bed, maybe squeeze over so one of you could get the spare bed.”_

_“For real?” Dustin had asked. “’Cause I’m so game.”_

_“Are you sure?” Shane asked Hunter._

_“Yeah, you and Dustin can stay,” Hunter added, hoping his voice didn’t sound as hoarse as he suddenly felt. “We’ve been doing movie marathons though, so prepare for a lot of ice cream on the on the top deck big screen.”_

_“How much we talking here?” Dustin had saved, flopping down onto the couch next to Hunter._

_“Ah…”_

_“So far we’ve managed to watch all the Harry Potters, all the Austin Powers, Treasure Planet, Lilo & Stitch, and Spider-Man,” Blake had answered._

_“So kid flicks,” Shane said._

_Hunter had shaken his head. “Tonight we’re doing Attack of the Clones, Queen of the Damned, and Forty Days/Forty Nights.”_

_“Also known as the butt-kicking and eye candy night,” Blake said._

_“Dude!” Hunter had shouted. “They’re_ action films _.”_

 _“I dunno, he’s kinda right man,” Dustin had said to Hunter. “Ewan, Hayden, Natalie, Stewart Aaliyah, Stuart Townsend_ and _Josh Hartnett? That’d be more than enough for me. ”_

_Blake had paused, glancing between Shane, Dustin, and him. “You find the, uh, guys attractive?” he said slowly._

_“I’m bi,” Dustin had said, with way more calm than he had had the night after their trip to the island that Hunter still refused to think about. “I find them_ all _attractive.”_

_“Huh,” Blake had replied, gazing at Hunter more knowingly than he would’ve liked. “Then you’re definitely going to like movie night tonight.”_

_“Shane’ll too,” Dustin said._

_“Yeah?” Hunter had replied, trying to imagine what he’d do if it turned out Shane also was interested in guys._

_“I’m a fan of action,” Shane had said, sounding like he was choosing his words carefully, “and it’s not exactly rough for me to watch Hayden Christiansen swing a lightsaber.”_

_“Cool,” Hunter had said, trying not to read too much into the fact that Shane had chosen the one blonde man on the list._

_“Alright, well, I’ll grab the movies from the DVD store,” Blake had added, hopping up from where he’d been sitting on one of the two beds in the suite, “and you guys get the ice cream.”_

_It had been, admittedly, a little more crowded that night, with Hunter and Blake clustering together while Dustin took the other bed and Shane took the couch. But when Hunter had woken up to find himself looking out at Shane meditating on the porch, the sun rising over the Harbor in front of him, while a sleepy, frowning Dustin stared mournfully at the suite coffee maker he apparently couldn’t get started, and—_

_Well, it hadn’t been a bad way to start their last day on ship.]_

 

But the week had ended, which meant getting a place, and Tori—who hadn’t grudged the guys a sleepover, but who Hunter suspected might’ve felt left out— managed to let them convince her to help them rent out one of the last surfer lodges on the Harbor. One third a kitchen with a small table, with a door that faced the beach; one third “main room” with a few couches that folded out into beds, along with a coffee table in the center; and one third “bedroom” with its own shower, washer, dryer, and bathroom tucked neatly into the side. The whole thing was made out of light brown wood and plastic paneling and felt like something a 1990s vision of the 1960s. The whole thing was also his and Blake’s, and that mattered, because Hunter and Blake hadn’t had somewhere that was all their own besides a small, shared room with bunk beds for as far back as Hunter could remember.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise to Hunter when he came back from a shift at _Storm Chargers_ to see Blake tacking up small posters of bikers, surfers, and skateboarders in the main room. And it hadn’t surprised Blake to come back from his own shift to find Hunter had laid out a yellow tablecloth over their kitchen table, as well as thrown dark red and blue throw pillows onto the couches. They _were_ surprised one evening to come back from riding and see someone had set up a red surfboard rack outside; covered their table with motocross magazines; hooked up an old Playstation with a _Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue_ disc in it; stocked their fridge; and marked the windowpanes with the Thunder Academy Kanji insignia; but they didn’t complain about it.

 

[Hunter and Blake may have covered a couple extra shifts in return so that certain really _unsubtle_ Wind Ninjas could get a break, but no one complained about that either.]

 

And although Blake and Hunter hadn’t named it yet— Blake was pulling for The Bradley Bungalow, while Hunter felt The Surf Shack had grown on him— the place had come to feel like home, a fact that had made it even more important to Hunter to try to clean up really, _really_ well after the alien attack from earlier.

“Thank Dimitria I got all that oil out,” he told their home as he laid down on the couch, resting his head down gingerly on a pillow as he waited for Blake to come out of the shower, hoping that the pillow itself wouldn’t get too stained by his toweled hair. “I mean, all I wanted was to give Blake some tickets to the Action Films Fest.”

Hunter _had_ swung by Storm Charger earlier to surprise Blake with a pair of tickets for the Action Films Festival to celebrate Blake’s birthday. Besides making Blake incredibly happy, the tickets had signaled to Tori and Dustin that Blake’s birthday was coming up— which was how Hunter now knew Tori’s was coming up fast in May and Dustin’s had happened back in January— and that had led to Blake asking Tori to join them at the Historic Blue Bay Harbor Theater for the show.

 

 

_April 1, 2003, 4:35 PM_

“Tori’s cutting it close,” Hunter said to his brother.

“Yeah, I know,” Blake replied.

They had been standing in the theater lobby for fifteen minutes, waiting for Tori to show up.

“Dude, stop pacing,” Hunter said at last, looking away from where the theater had hung up a series of posters advertising that next month X2: X-Men United was going to be on the screen, to glance at his brother pacing back and forth in front of the theater doors. “You’re going to wear out your good jeans.”

“Bro, go back to drooling over Hugh Jackman and James Marsden.”

“Okay, someone’s tense on his birthday,” Hunter replied. “And for the record? I was looking at Shawn Ashmore.”

Blake paused from where he was walking. “Why?” he asked.

Hunter shrugged. “Heard a rumor Bobby Drake comes out in this one.”

“…like, as a mutant?”

“I guess?”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Right, cause that’s going to be worth the ticket price.”

“Hey, get used to it,” Hunter told his brothers. “’Cause if you think you can drag me to Charlie’s Angels 2 and that Laura Croft thing without me dragging you to League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Matrix Reloaded—”

“I know, I know, we’ll swap movies.”

“Hey guys!” a voice called out, a voice that Hunter quickly saw belonged to Tori, who streaked into the theater.

“Hey!” Blake said, lighting up.

 _Ugh, time to third wheel_ , Hunter thought. “We were just talking about the movies coming out next month,” he told her.

“Cool,” Tori said. “I know Dustin’s got his planning calendar out.”

“What’s he thinking of seeing?” Blake asked, looking at his brother.

“Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Curse of the Black Pearl and Finding Nemo,” Tori told Blake, “though I’m hoping he’ll come with me to Charlie’s Angels 2.”

“Blake’s thinking of going to that,” Hunter told her, laughing inside at the look of mild panic that crossed Blake’s face.

“Yeah?” Tori said. “Maybe we can go together then. I’ll tell you all the ways they get surf girls wrong, and you can tell me how the stunt folks do on moto.”

“Not as well as I could,” Blake said, making Tori laugh.

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Show’s about to start,” he said. “Anybody want popcorn?”

 

 

_April 1, 2003, 4:45 PM_

“You know what the worst part of this is?” Blake had grumbled as he tried to lift his arm, the sleeve of his jacket sticking slightly to the jacket itself due to the dripping yellow, oily substance drenching it. “It’s not even butter. We’re going to be destroyed by artificial flavoring.”

“I know. I definitely didn’t think an evil alien space pig was going to trap us inside a popcorn bucket at the movies,” agreed Hunter from where he was leaning against the popcorn bucket (popcorn prison?) wall. “But here we are, going where many a kernel has gone before.”

“I’d rather not _get popped_ on my birthday,” Blake said.

“We’ve already tried jumping out,” said Hunter.

“Yeah, and the morph our way out plan, the climbing out, the push me-pull me out, and several other plans that honestly make me wonder how much Dustin of all people is rubbing off on you. They all failed. Do you have _any_ other ideas?”

“Besides blowing this popcorn stand through sheer stubbornness and spite? Nah,” Hunter replied, “but surrender’s not an option.”

Blake sighed. “How dare you quote Apollo 13 at me,” the birthday boy said tiredly.

“Hey, at least Tori knows we’re in here and not blowing her off,” Hunter told his brother, remembering hearing her say “I’m sorry, my friends are in the popcorn and I have to save them” to the alien pig right before the alien had stolen the bucket from her and a fight had broken out in the theater.

“After we get out of here,” said Blake, looking above at the narrow opening, “I am never eating popcorn again. It’s all Twistables and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Squeezepops from here on out.”

“No Baby Bottle Pops?”

Blake glared at his brother. “Right, I hear you, Bro,” Hunter said, standing up to walk across the bucket towards Blake only to slip on something and fell into the ankle-high yellow fluid. “Ugh!”

Carefully searching with his hands, Hunter lifted a small, softly pyramidal, golden-brown object. “Un-popped kernels. Lovely, isn’t it?”

“Wait…wait a second,” Blake said, considering the kernel in his brother’s hands before suddenly dropping to his hands and knees, sending thick popcorn syrup rippling into the air. “Maybe we can pop our way out!”

“If we don’t fry ourselves first.”

“Got a better plan?” Blake asked.

Hunter shook his head. “I have no idea if that’ll work,” said Hunter, rearranging himself to a position similar to Blake’s, “But let’s do this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said, grabbing another one. “I’m thinking a pile of 17 should be enough.”

“17?”

“One for each of your birthdays.”

Blake smiled from where he knelt. “Aw, Bro. I love you too.”

“That’s all of them,” said Hunter after a minute, looking at the pile of kernels set strategically around the base of the bucket. “Ready?”

He and Blake clasped their wrists together. “Power of Thunder!”

The popcorn began to sizzle, with the oil bubbling around them.

“It’s getting hot in here!” Blake shouted.

“ _Please_ keep on all your clothes!”

“Bet you wouldn’t say that if I was Dustin or Shane!”

“Really?!” Hunter shouted back as the bubbling grew louder. “We’re surrounded _by boiling artificial flavoring_ and _now_ you want to talk about my love life!?”

“Well, it’s almost ready to blow, so!”

“Later! When we’re dried off!”

“Fine!” Blake shouted back, right before the first kernel exploded behind him.

 

 

_April 1, 2003, 9:32 PM_

Hunter winced at the memory. The plan had worked, getting them out but leaving them un-morphed on the top of a nearby office building, dripping piles of popcorn syrup, leaving Hunter to tell the Wind Rangers what they were covered in and that the minute the alien was killed they were going back home to take a long, _long_ shower. And while the butter had made a handy shield and Kelzack slip-and-slide during the battle, there was no way he and Blake could just walk it off afterwards, so they had ended up having to do a short, single, long-distance streak into Blue Bay Harbor itself to get rid of most of it first.

Hunter hated to think how the butter had scattered in the streak, but he was fairly certain most of it had fallen on top of the office building when they initially lunged. At least, he was pretty sure they weren’t the cause of the vehicular pile-up that blocked off downtown in a giant traffic jam for ten minutes due to suddenly slippery roads.

From there they’d walked home, stripping off their greasy clothes and throwing them straight into the washer the second they got inside, with Hunter taking the first shower. It had been a pretty fast affair for him because he’d managed to keep most of himself out of the oil, but Blake had been spending the last half hour under the water since he’d practically gotten dunked in it by exploding popcorn kernels.

Suddenly Hunter heard the shower turn off. “You got it all?” Hunter called out.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Blake said, walking out of the shower as he towel dried his hair, not bothering to cover up in front of his brother. “Whatever’s left will just have to dry and get washed out like hair gel anyway.”

“Bro, cover up,” Hunter said, looking away.

“Please, like you haven’t seen all of me before.”

Hunter scoffed. “Just because we roomed together for years doesn’t mean I want to see all of that when I don’t have to,” he replied, closing his eyes.

“At least not from _me_. Oh, wait,” Blake said as Hunter groaned. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”

“I thought we were going to be all about you and Tori today.”

“Hey, I had a few okay moments with her.”

“Dude, she saw you dripping in oil.”

“And she was totally fine with that,” Blake said.

“How do you know?”

“I asked her if she’d like to go with me again, this time to actually see the movies, and she said yes,” Blake said. “Only Sensei had her doing clean-up duty due to all the streaking from the skating expo, so I think I’m going to end up going with him instead. He shouldn’t be so bad to watch movies with either,” he added. “Keeps quiet, probably’ll eat from some mini-popcorn bucket that I don’t know how he’ll con the concession stand into giving him.”

“Huh, who’d have— wait, the expo!” Hunter shouted, blinking his open eyes (and seeing that Blake had, thankfully, at least thrown on a pair of navy boxers while they had been closed). “Dude, I _knew_ I was forgetting something.”

“You and Tori both huh?”

“I mean, obviously I’d be going to the movies with you,” Hunter reassured his brother. “But I could’ve at least wished Shane luck or something.”

“I’m sure he was okay without it.”

“Yeah,” Hunter sighed. “Hey Bro?”

“Hmm?” Blake called from where he was pulling on a shirt.

“Happy Seventeenth Birthday.”

“Ah yes, the anointed by popcorn oil birthday,” Blake laughed. “Definitely will be harder to beat this next year.”

“I might be able to if I got Tori to stay long enough.”

“You try it, and I’m inviting Dustin or Shane. Maybe both.”

“Dude!” Hunter said, sitting up on the couch. “That’s— I mean—”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Bro,” he said, “I’m not going to make a big deal on it right now because it’s my birthday, and I really want to spend it playing Tony Hawk and not going over your wreck of a love life. But if you think I’ve missed how you came back in with Dustin all flushed-face the night we escaped that island, or how you’ve been playing the whole ‘pining when he’s not looking’ game with Shane, or how you watch both of them move around in Ninja Ops like they’re new factory bikes you want to ride, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“Is it that obvious?” Hunter asked, covering his eyes with his hand.

“To me at least,” Blake replied. “Probably Tori too. I don’t know what’s going on in Dustin or Shane’s head though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think Dustin must’ve thought whatever you two got up to was a one off?”

“I- huh?” Hunter said confused.

“I mean, going out on a limb here,” Blake said, leaning over the couch to look at his brother, “but you spent a lot of time watching Shane when he showed up at the track last week—”

“He was working on our bikes, that’s not—”

“And you said he looked good. Repeatedly,” Blake said.

“Oh.”

“It was awkward for everyone.”

“I-but I said Dustin did too!”

Blake snorted. “Yeah to me, later.”

“…Right.”

“But bright-side Shane doesn’t act like he thinks you’re available and they’re definitely interested in you. Like, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“…I don’t even know what to say to any of that.”

Blake shrugged. “Then say nothing,” he said. “Just move your blanket-clad butt over so I can whup it videogame style.”

“Oh, it’s on,” Hunter challenged playfully as he scooted over, letting the blanket fall around his lap so that he sat bare-chested on the couch. “You watch. I’m going to bring it.”

“Oh good, it’ll be brought,” Blake replied as he walked over and turned on the game.

 

[After twenty minutes, and beating Hunter twice in a row while sneaking in some chips from the fridge, Blake was willing to declare it the best birthday ever. And Hunter was inclined to agree.]


	14. Chapter X: Ripple on Water

_“The true meaning of the samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love.”_

_“The samurai is the first to suffer anxiety for human society and he is the last to seek personal pleasure.”_

  * __Morihei Ueshiba__



 

 

  _April 13, 2003, 10:17 AM_

“Shane,” Cam heard Sensei Watanabe ask. “Would you be so kind as to fetch me a brick?”

“Dustin, stop push—”

“ _Shane._ ”

“Fetch you a what, Sensei?” Shane said hurriedly.

 _Will you all please calm down,_ thought Cam silently from where he sat at the console, trying to monitor the Ranger feed. _It’s just brick day._ _Not like you haven’t seen it every year for the last three years running or anything._

“A brick.” Sensei gestured smoothly across the room with his hand. “There are several next to the wall.”

“Oh, right. Sure thing, Sensei.”

There was a soft thudding noise, the sound of someone’s feet coming down on their balls with the practice of one who often pushed himself forward on them. The steps brushed by Cam’s shoulder, and glancing out of the corner of his eye Cam saw Shane approach the pile of bricks stacked in the back of the Ninja Ops main room, considering them for a moment before bending down, his uniform drawing tight against his back as he gripped and pulled one up.

From behind him Cam heard a slight intake of breathe. _Probably Hunter,_ he thought to himself as Shane passed by the console again, this time with a concrete brick in his hand.

Cam continued to try to look at the Ninja Ops console, but his attention kept wandering behind him to where Sensei Watanabe of the Wind Ninja Academy, Ranger mentor and his father, was teaching the Wind and Thunder Rangers, the rangers themselves standing haphazardly in a semicircle around him. _There’s nothing to see there,_ Cam reminded himself, forcing his eyes to skim over the satellite imagery on the monitor. _You’ve already seen and learned this lesson. You don’t have to watch it again. There’s nothing to be gained from relearning how to shatter a brick, and everything to be gained from keeping everyone safe._

There was a sudden thump in the air as Shane set down the brick where Cam’s father had doubtlessly indicated he should put it.

“There you go, Sensei,” Shane said. “One brick, as requested.”

“Thank you, Shane.”

“There’s no way dude,” Hunter was saying. “There’s no way he does it.”

“I dunno dude,” Dustin said back. “He’s pretty strong for a little guy. One time I saw turn into a hawk and—”

There was the faintest whisper of fabric cutting through the air as Sensei Watanabe somersaulted and placed himself on the brick’s other side. “Observe, Rangers,” he said.

 _Way to be dramatic dad,_ Cam thought as he imagined the Rangers watching his small guinea pig of a father striking the brick so fast that the sharp sound of its cracking resounded in the air.

“Dude! Dude!” Shane was laughing.

“No way!” Hunter said. “There’s no way he could’ve done that!”

“Tor, did you see that!?” Dustin was asking. “Did he just—”

“Whoa,” Blake started. “Sensei’s a bad—”

“ _Language_ Blake,” Tori interrupted. “You were saying Hunter?”

“I stand corrected,” Hunter replied. “I just don’t know how.”

“The Power comes not from the body, but the mind,” Tori replied, making Cam happy that at least _somebody_ had paid attention to hearing that lecture _multiple_ _times_ _over_ throughout their years at the Academy. He imagined the Thunder Ninjas probably had as well given how their faded reflections in the console screen showed them staring unsubtly at the Wind Ninjas as they jostled each other around, Hunter staring somewhere between Dustin and Shane while his brother seemed to be staring at Tori.

“I just never thought you meant that so literally,” Tori added, her voice sounding almost loud to Cam compared to the sound of the other men. “The whole strength coming from the mind thing. But apparently, I was wrong.”

“And now it is your turn,” Cam heard his father say.

 _Oh Dimitria, no,_ Cam thought.

“What? No way, Sensei,” Shane said, as if he could hear Cam’s thoughts.

“Yeah, even I don’t think I’m _that_ good,” Blake said, “and I’m pretty good.”

“You’re like, a super ninja master, Sensei.” Dustin added.

“You are all capable of achieving this,” said Cam’s dad resolutely, the words making Cam want to bash his head into his keyboard. “These past two months have proven to us all that you are learning and strengthening quickly with every one of Lothor’s warriors you face. Yet we cannot take for granted that everything will come so quickly or so easily, and as your skill improves, you will likely face new threats that need new skills, skills that only new challenges can cause you to learn. Today, this is your challenge. There are more bricks by that wall. Proceed.”

“You sure you wanna do this?” Blake was asking his brother as the group began to head towards Cam.

“If he can do it, then I can at least give it a shot,” Hunter replied.

 _But Wind Ninja Academy students take at least three years to do this,_ Cam thought as he gave up monitoring the feed and turned around to watch the Rangers as they slowly came to a stop to allow Dustin to place a new brick in the middle of the room a few feet away from the console. _These three were just barely done with that before their Ranger days. They’re not ready for this. And okay, yeah, the Thunder Academy does the ground-strike thing with cadets, but I’m sure they don’t do brick-cracking…unless maybe Sensei Oromino taught Hunter and Blake personally?_

“All right,” said Hunter into the silence. “Here I go.”

Cam watched as Hunter stood over his brick, his face relaxing as he brought his hand up.

 _Let the failure begin,_ Cam thought.

Hunter swiftly brought his hand down on the brick, and then hissed in pain.

The brick was whole.

Cam sighed. _Guess this is gonna be one of those sessions,_ he reflected, watching as one by one the Rangers all tried various ways of striking and gesturing at the stone until finally all five of the Rangers had surrounded the brick where it stood on the floor. They were staring at it while trying to rub the soreness out of their hands— and, in Blake’s case, his forehead, which Cam felt had felt had to be the most creatively desperate approach to take he’d seen in years.

 _This isn’t rocket science!_ Cam wanted to yell at them. _You call on your elemental powers and SMITE THE BRICK._

“Maybe we’re not ready yet,” said Tori softly.

“Maybe she’s right. I mean, that’s super advanced stuff, Sensei,” added Dustin. “And it’s really cool that you think we can do such stuff already, but…”

“You have come far in your training, but you still have far to go. The brick will remain _exactly_ where it stands,” said Sensei firmly. He jumped, somersaulted over the Rangers’ heads, landed on his cart, and rolled away, leaving the Rangers staring at his back.

Cam sighed. _Guess I’ll have to show them how,_ he thought before getting up.

“Dude, he’s harsh,” Blake was saying as Cam approached, the Rangers shifting slightly to make space for Cam.

Space Cam used to stand over the brick and crack it, the sharp ringing piercing the room.

His dad stopped his cart, turned around, joining the other Rangers to stare at Cam over the broken brick.

“What?” Shane asked, shocked.

“What.” Cam asked back.

“Alright, how did you do that?”

“Did you use a laser beam?” Dustin said. “Or- or did you switch the bricks when we weren’t looking? What?” he added when he saw the judgmental look on Tori’s face. “I saw that in a stunt show once.”

“Ninjor,” Tori muttered to herself.

“It’s not hard,” Cam said through gritted teeth. “You’re just not doing at it right.”

“It’s gotta be a trick,” Hunter insisted.

“You know, just because someone isn’t a Ranger, doesn’t make him completely useless,” Cam blurted out.

“Cameron…” said his dad, and Cam knew that tone.

 _You cannot be a ninja. You cannot be a Ranger. I_ know _Dad, but is it my fault they apparently need multiple demonstrations to understand stuff I knew by the time I was half their age?_

“Cam,” Shane whispered.

“I need some air,” Cam said suddenly, moving towards the door. “Need to step away from that monitor for a bit anyhow.”

“Dude, is he mad at us?” he heard Dustin ask as he left, barely hearing Shane reply, “He’s _always_ mad at us.”

 

***

 

“Get it together Cam,” he muttered to himself as he skipped another stone across the still marshy water that was the Academy’s training ground for the Water specialty, one that was fed by the water of the Academy waterfall as it flowed out to Blue Bay Harbor.

The stone had barely sunk when he heard footsteps on the ground behind him.

“So that was kinda awesome,” a male voice said, “but what happened back there?”

Cam turned around to see Hunter coming to stand beside him. “Would’ve thought Tori was coming,” he told him.

“I’m right here,” she said, coming up from behind the Crimson Ranger, “but Hunter moved faster.”

“Like lightning,” Hunter teased her.

Tori rolled her eyes. “Cam,” Tori said.

“Tor,” Cam said, trying out the nickname the others used for her.

“Hunter. What?” Hunter added when Tori snickered, “were we _not_ doing the name thing?”

“You alright? I thought…I know you’re a strong fighter, but I don’t remember you ever attending any of the ninja specific classes,” Tori said, ignoring the Crimson Ranger. “Just the martial arts.”

“Yeah,” Cam replied said.

“Why would he have to? He’s Sensei’s kid,” Hunter asked. “I’m sure he learned everything from him anyway.”

“Not so much,” Cam said.

Tori’s brow furled. “I don’t understand,” she said, sounding genuinely confused. “What do you mean?”

 _I don’t really know either._ “No one ever taught me Ninja techniques, not really.”

“…huh?” Hunter asked. “But, you’re his son.”

“Hunter,” Tori warned.

“I mean, Sensei Oromino adopted Blake and me and taught us both,” Hunter went on. “But no one ever taught you?”

“Nope,” Cam said. “My father has prohibited me from learning ninja styles.

“He _what_?” Tori asked, sounding indignant.

Everything I know about it, including how to fling power at a brick, I got from watching.”

“Cam’s, Sensei’s not…I mean, there’s no way he’d just…” She gesticulated with her hands. “Why?” she asked again, more quietly.

He didn’t answer.

“Dude, he must’ve been so shocked you could crack that brick then,” Hunter said, and not for the first time Cam found himself wondering if the current chipper-ness of the Crimson Ranger was a sign that being around Dustin on the track so much was beginning to rub off on him.

“Is this why you ran out?” Tori asked.

“Yes,” Cam told her. “We’ve had this argument _so_ _many_ _times_ before, and I really, I just...you guys have been awesome Rangers, _way_ better than you were ninja cadets, though you’ve definitely gotten better at that too, but I get tired of the lack of respect.”

“You want to be a Ranger,” Hunter said, making it sound less of a question than a statement.

“I think he does,” Tori said after a while.

“You’re…not wrong,” Cam said as he closed his eyes and looked away. “But he’s forbidden me from doing that too.”

“Cam, you are a part of us. And who says you don’t get any respect?” Tori asked, walking forward to put a hand on his shoulder. “Cam, anything we’re able to do is because of what you’re able to do.”

“Yeah,” Hunter added, stepping forward to slide an arm around him. “Can you imagine anyone else trying to run Ninja Ops, care for Sensei, monitor the city for an attack, fix the Zords, and put up with us? You can’t, because no one else could. That’s all you. You’re easily the most together of all of us.”

“It’s not the same.” Cam said, sounding choked tt himself. “I could do all that even if I _was_ a Ranger. It’s not something that _makes_ me a Ranger, or a ninja for that matter.”

“For what it’s worth, you’re not the only person who wishes it would be otherwise.”

He opened his eyes and turned his head slightly, looking at Tori where she stood next to him.

“I don’t think Dustin’s stopped trying to read those Cycle plans since you first gave them to him,” she said. “Hunter would probably kill for you.”

“Yeah I would,” Hunter told Cam when he looked at him. “You know how far I’d go to rain down vengeance on the folks who hurt the people I care about.”

“And Shane and I, well,” Tori said, trailing off.

“The two of you have been trying to watch after me like the most obsessiveness older siblings ever,” Cam said, only to get hugged by the Blue Ranger in response, a hug that was quickly matched by the Crimson Ranger on the other side of him, who also laid his head on Cam’s shoulder.

Cam couldn’t recall the last time he’d been hugged by anyone. It felt…surprisingly natural.

“Dad says it’s because my mom made him promise,” he heard himself tell the two of them. “She made him promise I wouldn’t become a ninja.”

“Wasn’t she a ninja herself?” Hunter asked, raising his head.

“No, at least at first,” Cam replied, “but that’s all he’ll say. No, wait,” he corrected himself, “he mentioned one time that there’re other styles than Ninja ones, but he’s never told me what they were.”

“So that doesn’t make any sense to me,” Tori told him, “but you know, I’m sure that if you tell him how you feel, how important this is to you, he’d change his mind. He’s the most responsible guinea pig I’ve ever met.”

“And if he doesn’t listen, just don’t clean his cage for a month,” Hunter added, and Cam felt himself laughing at the idea.

“I-yeah, okay,” Cam told them. “I’ll give it a try, and…and thank you, for this.”

“Anytime,” Tori told him as Hunter gave him a squeeze.

“So…you feel like getting back in their before Dustin tries to hack your console?” Hunter asked after a moment.

“Hunter, if Dustin manages to do that, I _deserve_ to be hacked.”

“Hey, last one back makes dinner,” Tori said as she turned to leave.

Suddenly there was a flashing blaze of purple.

“We hate to break up this greeting card moment,” Cam heard a distinctly female voice say, “but we’re here to destroy you.”

“You all okay?” another male voice said. Cam quickly glanced around, seeing that Shane, Blake, and Dustin had streaked over just in time to face what the clearing light revealed to be Marah, Kapri, an alien that had skyscrapers on its head and seemed to be holding a giant steel cooking pot, and a batch of Kelzacks.

“You’ve got some nerve, all right,” Tori replied to Marah.

“Cam, run,” Hunter said, moving in front of him.

“No way,” Cam told him as he shifted into a fighting stance he had picked up from watching the cadets over the years. “I can help.”

“Too late anyway,” said Shane resolutely as the Kelzacks charged.

“Leave the Kelzacks to me, and go face the aliens,” Cam said, beginning to run himself.

“I am Madtropolis,” declared the alien. “Prepare to be trampled!”

“Okay, I’ve heard them say that cities come to life,” said Dustin, “but this is ridiculous!”

 _No, you prepare to be trampled,_ Cam thought to himself as he watched the Rangers run towards him.

All six of them fought for a brief moment, and Cam had almost beaten the last Kelzack when he heard a strange sucking noise from behind him. “What the—” Cam muttered as he turned around, only to see the Rangers fall over de-morphed and colorless onto the ground.

“Looking pale Rangers,” Marah said. “I have some toners you could try, but you’re not that lucky.”

“You guys okay?” Cam asked as Marah and Madtropolis warped away.

“Ugh, I feel like I drove down a road for 45 minutes on a tricycle,” Dustin moaned.

“Let’s get you back to Ops,” Cam said.

 

 

_April 13, 2003, 11:00 AM_

“It appears that Madtropolis has drained your Ranger energy force and stored it in that giant pot of his,” Cam said to the Rangers, who were standing unsteadily behind him as he looked at the Ninja Ops monitor. “If you go out and fight again, there’s a good chance you won’t come back.”

“Dude, that’s _harsh,_ ” Dustin moaned.

“Looks like he’s back again,” Tori stammered, gesturing towards the screen.

“Let’s go,” Shane gritted out.

“You can barely— alright, I’ll…give your morphers a temporary power boost,” Cam said, seeing the look of resolution on Shane’s face, “but it won’t last forever, so conserve your energy.”

“Thanks Cam,” Hunter muttered as the Rangers began to streak out.

Cam turned to the monitor, watching for a moment as the group fought him until—

“What.” Cam said as the monitor turned off, beeping as it restarted and revealed the Rangers stumbling around the field in front of Madtropolis, who had chosen to sit off to the ide.

“Dad, what’s going on?” Cam asked his father, not really thinking he’d answer.

“It would seem that Madtropolis has trapped the Rangers within a false vision of reality,” said his dad, coming to stand next to the keyboard.

“Oh great,” Cam muttered. “And I can’t reach the Rangers and tell them that since they’re trapped inside the illusion.”

His father cocked his head to the side. “I will attempt to reach them.”

Cam watched tensely as his father closed his eyes, attempting to enter a light trance.

Moments passed. “Try Shane or Tori,” Cam said quietly.

Sensei Watanabe hummed. After a moment the monitor showed Shane snapping out of whatever the illusion was, followed soon after by the other Rangers, who managed to steal the pot-thing from the alien before blasting him into the ground.

Cam was just about to congratulate them on escaping when suddenly there was a bright flash, the monitoring almost whiting out.

 _I really have to work on filtering for special effects,_ Cam thought to himself as he blinked away the glare to see the Rangers all knocked out de-morphed on the ground. “Power boost must’ve worn off,” Cam said aloud. “Guys? Guys!”

“Cam?” he heard Shane respond. “Wha?”

“Dude,” Dustin moaned. “This is worse than an ice cream headache.”

“Great,” Cam heard Tori reply. “Now I’m hungry on top of everything else.”

“Get back here, all of you,” Cam said, only to watch as what was left of Madtropolis suddenly glowed as the alien regrew until it was taller than the nearby buildings. “Oh for the— guys!”

“Well we can’t just leave him to hurt people,” Cam heard Shane say over the comms.

“You’ll never last through a _megazord fight_ ,” Cam said. “You’re barely able to move.”

“We’re Power Rangers,” Dustin said. “We’ll be fine.”

“I—”

“Trust us Cam,” Hunter said. “We’ve got this.”

“That’s- you know what, _fine_ ,” Cam said, fingers flying across the board. “Let me take that pot-thing from you, and then I’ll send you the zords and some protection along with them. Just…don’t die.”

 _There’s gotta be a better way_ , Cam thought as he tried to look at his father, whose guinea pig head was already shaking as it examined the newly-transferred pot emerging onto the Ninja Ops table.

“The jar is shut by the power it contains,” the Sensei said at last.

“But there must be another power that can open it, right?”

“In the past, there was a source of energy that might’ve helped, but there’s no sense longing for what has long since been destroyed.”

“This is no time for _riddles_ Dad.”

“And it is useless to discuss it when we can’t safely predict how the portal—”

“The Scroll of Time, of course!” Cam said, hurrying towards the scroll rack that, after its first iteration had been destroyed by Blake and Hunter, had been separated off the main room onto a small metal tower in the back corner of the room. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that in the first place!”

“No!” Sensei shouted, leaping across the room to land on the rack itself before the scroll of time. “We cannot risk disturbing the natural flow of time!”

“There won’t _be_ any time left if I don’t go.”

“To confront one’s past is an awesome responsibility. It risks changing _everything_ you know about the present,” Cam’s father said gravely. “Are you certain this is the only way?”

 _Do you have to ask?_ “Yes,” Cam said aloud.

Sensei Watanabe sighed. “Then take it,” he said. “Know that it will take you to where and when you must go to retrieve the energy source, and that time will not progress in your absence.”

Cam nodded. “But where am I going to? What kind of artifact am I looking for?”

“You will know,” said his dad.

“I hope so,” muttered Cam. He held the scroll in front of him, ready to open it.

“You must hurry, or you’ll be stuck in the past.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Cam?”

“Dad?”

“You have your mother’s heart, and your father’s stubborn head,” his father said. “Be careful, my son.”

Cam’s throat tightened. “Thanks, Dad,” he said. Then he opened the scroll, the parchment lengthening as it flew into the air, its center rippling until it burst into a bright light that swallowed him.

 

 

_April 13, 1985, 7:45 AM_

_That HURT,_ Cam grumbled to himself as he tried to stand up from where he landed, resting a hand on…a tree. “Where am I?” Cam asked, only to realize that he was standing outside the Wind Ninja Academy waterfall, right where an older student on horseback— _that’s unusual,_ Cam thought to himself _, we don’t ride those anymore after the May Angel Grove Cowboy incident of 1995—_ was examining a group of young cadets walking across the river. The cadets were dressed in neon-colored t-shirts, jeans, and white sneakers, and as far as Cam could hear were talking in soft tones about how choice Take On Me was.

“This place at least looks exactly the same,” Cam muttered to himself as he listened, “and I definitely blend in,” he added as he looked at his own clothes, a near mimic of the younger students except for his (not-so-neon bright) green polo.

Moving quickly he joined the line of cadets, crossing through the portal to stand before a teacher. “Password?” the student asked, seeming bored.

 _“_ Air, Water, and Earth as one.”

The student’s eyes flicked up. “That’s the wrong answer.”

 _Oh trust me, some day that will be the password,_ Cam thought as he shifted his stance.

“And where did you learn that stance?” the student asked. “Only students who are taught here know to fall into that.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

The student glared. “Try me,” he said firmly.

“That’s enough Kanoi,” a voice came from beyond the waterfall, a voice that revealed itself to belong to an Academy teacher that was walking through the portal hidden in the waterfall to address them. “It’s testing day.”

“He could be a spy.”

“A spy? As if we would be so easy to deceive,” the teacher said. “Let him in. Even if he forgot the password, I’m sure he’ll remember it in the time it takes to give him a uniform and decide what school he belongs in.”

“Yes Sensei.”

“And Kanoi?” the teacher added, turning to walk back into the waterfall.

“Yes Sensei?”

“Don’t be late to class again. I’m beginning to question your commitment to your training.”

Cam stared at the student as the teacher walked back through the falls. _Did he just say—_ ”Someone’s in the ninja doghouse,” he blurted out.

The student flushed. “Don’t press your luck, and stop staring at me,” he said. “Just…go through the waterfall, get a test uniform and change. You will wear no color until you are sorted into your element.”

“Coming…father.” Cam muttered to himself as he followed Kanoi into the waterfall.

 _So_ _it’s element sorting day. We must be near the start of a semester,_ Cam thought to himself as he walked, grabbing a test uniform from where they had been stacked before slipping into a changing tent to quickly slide the uniform on over his clothes, making sure the scroll remained firmly tucked inside his pocket.

 _Perks of being a Ninja kid,_ Cam thought wryly as he walked out to stand in front of a large, pagoda-like stage. _You can change clothes with little difficulty._ Cam’s sense of blending in was confirmed by the time he came to stop around the other grey-clad students, who were fidgeting uneasily in their new clothes as they listened attentively to a speech being given from the stage in front of them.

“Our best fighter, Kanoi Watanabe, will demonstrate the sword techniques of the wind ninja!” the instructor shouted. “Kanoi!”

Cam’s heart stopped.

 _If he’s old enough for the sword demo, he has to at least be in his fifth year,_ Cam realized dimly as he found himself staring once more at the younger (and significantly less guinea pig-like) image of his father. Kanoi had slicked his black hair back, and his pace was fluid as he moved across the stage and picked up a wakizashi from the weapons rack, the short sword shining in the sun.

 _Oh Dimitria, it’s the start of the summer trimester,_ he thought as he watched his father move swiftly through the forms for sword-fighting, demonstrating some of the techniques the cadets would be learning. _But if I’m back that far in time, then that means—_

 _“_ We will now need a volunteer,” the instructor said when Kanoi had stopped, only to move slightly to grab another sword. A murmur went up when a student in a grey test uniform, a _novice_ , stepped onto the stage.

“But Sensei—” Kanoi protested.

“You may begin,” the Sensei replied firmly.

 _Do they want to die_? Cam thought, only to revise his opinion when the novice had knocked Kanoi to the ground.

“Kanoi talks tough,” said a quiet, familiar voice next to Cam’s shoulder, “but he can be beaten.”

Cam turned his head, and froze when he saw the person standing next to him. He was dressed in an Earth ninja’s uniform and was the spitting image of the Air ninja on stage. “You’re…”

“Yes, we’re brothers,” the person said, sounding resigned. “Twins, in fact.”

“…Your brother’s quite good,” said Cam quietly, trying not to panic as he wondered about the uncle he didn’t recall ever having.

“He’s doesn’t get challenged much.”

“Till today anyway.”

“Seems so. Kiya,” he said. “Don’t worry. I got all the intelligence in the family. Kanoi just got all the good looks.”

“Cameron,” Cam said. “And I’m not worried.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kiya said, before adding, “think it’s a transfer student from another Academy?”

“No, that’s…I don’t know much about ninja styles,” Cam said, hoping the white lie would cover up his familiarity, “but the only time I’ve seen sword technique like that was from a—”

“Samurai,” Kiya said, sounding pleased, only to stop as the novice finally defeated Kanoi, pausing for a brief moment before moving back so that Kanoi could stand up again.

“Bow,” the Sensei said, which the pair did before the novice removed their face cover. “Excellent Miko.”

“Miko?” Kanoi said, sounding surprised. “That’s the name of a girl!”

 _Mom?_ Cam thought.

“A woman?” whispered Kiya incredulously as others began to mutter.

“That seems fairly obvious,” the instructor said.

 _Well that settles it,_ Cam thought as he stared himself as the murmuring grew. _Between the neon clothes, my father, and this, I must be in April sometime in the mid-1980s because the Wind Ninja Academy didn’t start admitting women any earlier than that. And Mom was the first one they let in._

_At least now I know where I get my overachieving side from._

“Her sword work isn’t in our way,” Kanoi was saying to the instructor. “And- and Sensei, we have _traditions_! There _aren’t_ any girls here!”

“I was trained by my father in the samurai way,” Miko said.

“Are you afraid of a girl brother?” Kiya shouted at the same time. “Maybe our traditions should change.”

“A girl?” Kanoi demanded, loudly. “I’ve been defeated at swordplay by a _girl?_ ”

“Let it be a lesson to you all,” the Sensei replied. “Never underestimate _any_ opponent. Miko’s skills have more than qualified her to become our first female student. Welcome to the Ninja Academy, and you are now dismissed,” he concluded after a moment, letting the ninjas begin to wonder off.

 _Mom was a samurai,_ Cam thought about as he headed towards breakfast, finding himself among the first of the first-years to arrive at the mess hall as he hadn’t needed to look for a building he’d ate in almost all his (not-yet existent) life. He’d just managed to choose a table- a corner one, off to the side- and sit down at it, placing a cafeteria tray with plate of pancakes and syrup onto the tabletop, when he heard a light, decidedly female voice ask. “Is this seat taken?”

“No,” he forced himself to say. “You can sit here.”

“Thank you,” she said. Cam glanced up at the woman- _Mom_ \- as she sat, sighing with relief as she put her own tray down onto the table.

 _Of course_ , he thought after a moment. _Everybody would recognize her, after the demo_.

“I’m Cameron,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Miko.” She shook his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“So…what brings a samurai to the Wind Ninja Academy?” Cam asked after a moment.

Miko sighed. “My father.”

“Oh?”

Miko nodded. “You?”

“Same.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she said.

“What did your father do?” Cam asked, using his fork to cut off a piece of pancake to eat.

“My father trained me to be a great warrior,” Miko said. “Too great, apparently.”

“I’m…not sure I follow.”

“The _other_ men of House Watanabe—“

 _Wait, what?_ “I thought House Watanabe were all ninjas,” Cam blurted out.

Miko smiled. “We are of different houses,” she said, “though there are some of my family who theorized that we may have some spring from some ancestors before House Hatano and House Jackson came into existence.”

“I suppose a split sometimes in the 1700s would explain that,” Cam said slowly, hoping his relief at his parents not being cousins wasn’t too obvious.

“In any case,” Miko continued after taking a bite of her breakfast, “the other men felt that it was not appropriate for me to learn any of the more advanced techniques, and so my father sent me here, hoping that I may continue to grow by learning another technique.”

“That sounds…incredibly irritating.”

“I take it your father would never do that, would he?” Miko asked.

“Maybe not that,” Cam said slowly, “but the reason I’m here is because he’s banned me from learning my family’s style.”

“Fathers,” Miko said after a moment. “They want so much from us.”

“Could be worse,” Cam told her.

“Oh?”

“Could be a wicked step-uncle.”

Miko laughed, and Cam felt himself listening desperately to a sound he’d never hear again.

“True,” Miko told him after she caught her breath, “though my step-uncle agreed with my coming here.”

“A true progressive.”

“He thinks I’ll find someone to marry here and settle down to be a true warrior wife,” Miko said, rolling her eyes. “Never mind that plenty of people in our family never marry or seek out partners at all.”

Cam stared at his mother for a moment. “Never?” he asked at last.

Miko nodded. “My father used to joke that if we were plants, a good tenth of our family would reproduce asexually,” she teased.

“You must’ve had a very interesting childhood,” Cam heard himself say as he filed away what his mother said.

“It was,” Miko said. “Nothing compares with growing up in a family with its own fighting style, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Let me tell you,” Cam said after quickly swallowing another bite of his pancakes. “To this day, I found myself wondering how this is my life.”

 

 

_April 13, 1985, 2:31 PM_

_Seriously, I’m barely here a day,_ how _is this my_ life _?_ Cam found himself thinking as he once again stood in the pagoda, only this time before the entire student body.

 _They look scared_ , he thought grimly.

Cam could understand. In the few hours that Cam had existed in the past someone had broken into Miko’s room and stolen her amulet from her. Cam had been accused of being the thief when he was found walking near the woods outside her tent shortly after he had walked back from lunch with her, an accusation his own father had used his authority as Captain of the Guardians to arrest him for.

 _Apparently Dad was a stickler for the rules even back here,_ Cam thought. _No wonder he was made Captain of the Guardians. Also,_ Cam admitted to himself, _this has to be going down in history as the worst orientation day ever. I don’t even have my element yet, and they’re getting ready to boot me!_

“You stand accused of having stolen from another student,” the same instructor— _Sensei Kobe,_ Cam thought, remembering hearing the upperclassmen mentioning the name earlier— was saying. “We’ve heard from several eye witnesses that saw you commit this crime. Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

“Miko,” Cam said, “I would never do this.”

Cam watched as his mom looked carefully at him, and for a moment he couldn’t help remembering the conversation they had had on the way back to her tent:

 

_[“How did you learn those samurai moves?” Cam had asked her as they walked._

_“The samurai spirit has been passed down in my family for generations along with the amulet,” Miko had told him, gripping the green lantern shaped pendant from where it hung around her neck. “What about you? You said your father has banned you from the fighting, but does your family have any traditions of its own?”_

_“My father’s my Sensei,” Cam had replied carefully. “My mother died when I was young.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“She was a brave warrior. My father says she would never approve of the life I’ve chosen,” Cam had admitted, “of me doing what I’m doing. That’s why I had to come here. He won’t teach me, so I have to teach myself”_

_“I have a feeling, that if she could see you now, she might feel differently.”_

_“You think so?”_

_“Cam,” Miko had said to him, “if your mother was alive, standing before you right now, I know she would approve of you, of your brave heart and stubborn resolve to learn what you feel you must to be a part of your family.”]_

 

“The law doesn’t waiver on this issue,” Sensei Kobe was saying. “Those who violate the ninja code must be banished. I will now pass judgement on the accused. My judgement is that I find you—”

“Not guilty!” Cam heard his father’s voice cry out.

For a brief moment there was chaos among the attendees.

 _What in the name of Dimitira of Inquiris is going on!?_ Cam thought as he watched his father reveal that it was his uncle Kiya who stole the amulet, having used dark ninja powers to first steal and then try to break it.

“Any use of Dark Ninja Powers will result in _immediate banishment_ ,” Sensei Kobe exclaimed when Kanoi Watanabe finished speaking. “This is the first rule of the Wind Ninja Academy. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Not really,” Kiya replied. “I’m more a man of action.”

Kiya flung his hand forward, and chaos ensued once more as cadets began to fall and be knocked out as the Dark Earth Ninja flung bolts of energy at them, bolts that shook the ground and caused the weather to grow stormy as they shot forth into the crowd. Meanwhile Kanoi tried to lunge at his brother, eventually making enough contact that Kiya staggered and drawing him into the midst of what Cam felt he could charitably call a street brawl, with powers and elements and weapons flying wildly around the heads of the cadets.

 _I should help,_ Cam thought absently, standing motionless as he observed the scene. _But—_

“Cameron!” Cam heard his mother cry out. Turning, Cam raised his hand just in time to catch his mother’s amulet as she kicked it flying towards him, Cam hurrying to tie it around his neck in order to keep it safe more easily. It was as he tied the last knot Cam felt the Scroll of Time flare up, the first it had done so all day.

“Stop!” Kiya yelled, and Cam watched as a dark energy field grew around him and the uncle he had never known. “This is between me and the new kid. Pity, things were going so well before you showed up,” he said to Cam.

“I’m sorry to spoil your fun,” Cam replied.

“You want to make it up to me?” Kiya asked. “Then hand me the amulet.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Cam said, slowly walking backwards towards where the sword rack still stood to grab what was probably the same wakizashi that his father had used earlier that morning.

“You’re a stubborn one,” Kiya said, his own hand glowing as he used ninja energy to summon a sword directly into his hand, just barely missing Cam where he stood.

“It runs in the family.”

“Give me the amulet, or you’ll regret meeting me.”

“Like I already don’t,” Cam said as he charged, only to get knocked by Kiya into the energy field.

 _Okay,_ he thought as he picked himself up from the ground where’d fallen once Kiya’s blast of dark energy had dissipated. _Now I know I’m right when I tell Tori and the rest of them that they can get hurt when they’re trying to save the world from evil._

“Prepare to meet your fate,” Kiya said as he ran towards Cam.

Suddenly there was a bright flare of green light. Looking down Cam saw his mother’s amulet had activated, the green light from its center slowly filling the field until the field itself shattered, the force of which sent Kiya flying back into his brother’s waiting arms.

“Are you okay?” Miko asked Cam, running onto the stage.

“I— yeah, but what is going _on?”_

“The Samurai amulet has found its rightful owner,” she told him. “You should go.”

“But this is yours!” Cam said. “I can’t just take this.”

“Why not?” Miko said, giving a look that Cam knew he must’ve worn every time he tried to help the other Rangers. “It _is_ what you came here for, isn’t it?”

“I—”

“For your use of Dark Powers I, Sensei Kobe, strip you of your name, your rank, and your family,” Sensei Kobe was proclaiming as the Academy students tried to regroup. “You are hereby banished to wander the depths of space!”

“I will remember your role in this my one-time brother,” the one who was formerly called Kiya snarled. “And it doesn’t matter that you take my name from me Kobe, I wouldn’t want to share it with _him_. From now on, I choose a name to bear a name worthy of a Dark Ninja: Lothor.”

“No,” Cam shouted as a bubble formed around Kiya, a bubble that quickly shot off into the sky. “You should’ve destroyed him! What if he comes back?”

“We can only judge someone by what they’ve done in the present, not what they might do in the future,” Sensei Kobe told him sternly.

“ _Trust_ me,” Cam said, feeling his mother’s gaze on him. “We need to destroy—”

“Cam, your… scroll?” Kanoi asked suddenly as the Scroll of Time flew out of his pocket and opened, revealing a shimmering portal of white light.

“Go!” he heard Miko cry. “Use the amulet.”

“But I— there’s so much I want to tell you, to know.”

“Cam,” Miko said. “Good luck.”

Cam looked at his mother one last time. Saw how she stood, the smile on her face: the one he had heard his father say so much was like his own.

“I guess someone has to carry on your family legacy of fighting evil,” Cam heard himself tell her.

“And I am so _proud_ that it will be you,” Miko said.

Cam closed his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “And goodbye.”

“Goodbye Cameron,” his mother told him as he entered the portal. “And be careful, my—”

 

 

_April 13, 2003, 12:45 PM_

For a moment Cam found himself dazed again, this time lying on what felt like a wooden floor in deafening silence until slowly, bit by bit, he began to pick up on the soft hum of computers, the almost subliminal noise of the fluorescent lamps.

“Cam?” he heard a voice whisper.

“Remind me,” Cam gritted out as he forced himself over, “to make a note that the Scroll of Time _absolutely fails_ at soft landings.”

“I will,” the voice said, only this time Cam was aware enough to recognize it as his father, Sensei Kanoi Watanabe, sitting in the exact same spot where he´d been sitting when Cam left, holding his paw exactly at the same level.

 _Of course,_ Cam thought, glancing down to see that he was back in the clothes he had been wearing, the cadet uniform apparently having been removed by the Scroll of Time. _The Scroll brought me almost back to the exact time I left. He wouldn’t have been able to move._

“Cam?”

“Yeah,” said Cam slowly, lightly, feeling about as worn as he swore Shane’s ripped red muscle tees always looked to be. “I mean, yes. Yes, I…did it.”

“The wonders of time travel,” his father said, a smile gracing his guinea pig face. “I saw you stepping into the portal, and promptly returning again.”

“We have a _lot_ to talk about Dad.”

“I know, but first, the other Rangers.” Cam’s father inclined his head towards the monitor, which showed the megazord the Rangers were attempting to fight the giant-sized Madtropolis in taking a beating “I believe they are in need of some assistance.”

“The Rangers,” said Cam automatically as he began walking towards the command console. Then his mind caught up with his ears, and he stopped.

“The _other_ Rangers?” Cam demanded, turning his head sharply towards his dad.

“The amulet is also a morpher,”

 _I can morph_.

“Well,” Cam said aloud. “In _that_ case.”

Holding out the amulet Cam tried what he thought the appropriate version of the call Dustin had taught the other Rangers would be. The amulet again released a blinding flash of green light—and, he noted dimly, a feeling as if he had been sitting in a dojo, armor being placed around him by hands almost too maternal to be real.

And before he knew it he was flying over the battlefield in an emerald-colored, helicopter zord with blades shaped like a throwing star, energy cannons that blasted in more frequencies than Cam would’ve thought to program himself, and the phrase _Samurai Star_ written in Kanji on a scroll detail that stretched the length of the cockpit.

 _How do I let them know I’m a friendly Ranger and not evil Hunter version 2.0?_ Cam thought as he drove the helicopter to where the Rangers were. _There doesn’t appear to be any— wait, does my sword have a_ microphone _in it?_

 _“_ Guess so,” he said as he looked at it carefully. “That’ll do.”

Cam carefully put the helicopter on autopilot, grabbed his sword, opened the helicopter door, and stood on its rails. “Hey there Power Rangers! It looks like you could use a little help!” Cam shouted into his sword, hearing the other Rangers respond over the comms with excitement and relief as Cam arrived. “Green Samurai Ranger, at your service!”

“Who are you?” Cam heard the alien Madtropolis boom.

“I’m the Ranger who’s going to bring you down,” Cam shouted before entering the helicopter again.

 _Let’s see,_ Cam thought as he glanced down at the helicopter’s dashboard, his eyes falling upon a large, red circle. _Ooooh what does this button do?_

Cam pressed the circle, and watched- felt- as his zord transformed into a megazord of its own, one that its internal monitor showed Cam looked like a giant samurai with an energy blade and (for some reason that Cam was sure he’d figure out later) a giant bumblebee yo-yo.

 _This,_ Cam realized after he had swung the yo-yo into the alien’s face, causing Madtropolis to explode in a shower of sparks. _This is what Shane would call totally sick._

_***_

_“_ So is it just me?” Cam heard Dustin ask he landed in front of them. “Or is there a guy in a Green Ranger Suit standing over there.”

“Nah man,” Shane said. “It’s not just you.”

“This may be the power drain exhaustion talking,” Blake said, “but you guys never said anything about there being a green one.”

“Yeah,” Hunter added, “way to hold out on us.”

“Hey, it’s news to us too,” Shane said.

“Maybe we’re all hallucinating,” Dustin said.

 _Interesting Tori hasn’t said anything yet._ “You’re not hallucinating Dustin,” Cam said aloud.

“How do you know my name?!”

“Why wouldn’t I know your name?” he asked as he de-morphed.

“Cam?!” Blake shouted.

“Cam,” Tori said with a grin. “I knew it.”

“You, ah, all want a ride back in the chopper?” Cam asked after a moment.

“Uh, yeah?” Shane answered.

“So Cam,” Tori said, as the group began to walk towards the chopper. “I just have one question.”

“Yes?”

“ _What in the name of Ninjor happened to you?!?”_

***

“Rangers,” Cam’s father said as they re-entered Ninja Ops, the other Rangers glancing at Cam as he walked in. “I am glad you have returned safely.”

 _Oh right_ , he thought after a beat, and took off his helmet.

“Come on,” Cam told them. “Let’s get that thing open before one of you passes out.”

“How do we open it?” asked Blake.

“The sphere holds the power of five rangers,” Sensei Watanabe told them. “Only a greater power can open it.”

“How about blasting it with the power of six rangers?” Dustin asked as he walked with the other Rangers to where the sphere sat on the Ninja ops table.

“I think Dustin’s right,” Cam said, resting his morpher hand on top of the jar. One by one, the others put their hands on top of his. As soon as he felt the back of his palm be weighed down by the addition of Tori’s hand, the lid popped off in shower of sparks, leaving an empty jar to fall on its side.

Cam felt the rush as the Ranger powers returned to their owners— _and_ _why did nobody tell me they could actually feel each other’s power like that?_ Cam thought absently to himself. _That is useful information to know—_ before bracing himself as the other Rangers excitedly bounced around each other as if they had never been so energized before. But then it passed, and when it did, Cam was surrounding in the middle of five bright-eyed relieved Rangers.

“Dude, that was awesome,” said Dustin. “It’s so cool you’re a Ranger now, but you _so_ owe us a story.”

“Yeah, don’t think we didn’t miss you not telling us on the ride over dude,” Hunter said.

“It takes concentration to fly that thing!” Cam told them, making the other Rangers laugh. “But alright. Well…”

 

 

_April 13, 2003, 2:59 PM_

It had taken hours for Cam to tell everyone about his trip to the past around the other Rangers questioning— long enough that Dustin had gone and practically emptied the kitchen, pulling every snack food he could find and pouring it onto the Ninja Ops briefing table, a move that prompted everyone to start eating.

“And that’s everything,” Cam said at last.

“So, Uncle Lothor,” Shane whispered, reaching into a small bag of chips that lay open on his lap. “That’s crazy bro.”

“Tell me about it,” Cam told him. “Some family tree I’ve got.”

“Lothor is no relation of ours Cameron,” Cameron’s father spoke up. Cam had noticed he hadn’t asked any questions, or made any comments about his past while Cam talked, not even correcting Shane for teasing him for telling him, Tori, and Dustin to show up on time when a younger Kanoi hadn’t.

“How can you say that?” Tori asked.

“By law, once a ninja is banished, they cease to exist,” Sensei Watanabe said. “The one thy called my brother has long become a distant memory.”

“But don’t you think I had a right to know?” Cam asked him.

“Don’t you think we _all_ did?” Hunter insisted.

“What would that have changed?” Sensei Watanabe replied. “Would you have battled him any differently if you knew that once, many years ago, Lothor had called himself my older twin brother?”

 _He’s almost got a point,_ Cam thought in the contemplative quiet that followed. _We might not have done anything different, but Blake and Hunter were manipulated by Lothor twice. They may not have helped us, trusted us, as fast if they had thought were connected to them. Then again,_ Cam corrected himself, _they might’ve been more willing to help us because if there’s anybody who’d know what bad blood between brothers could like, it would be two brothers themselves._

“Green always did look good on you,” Tori said at last, breaking the quiet.

“Yeah, it does,” Shane added. “Hey, wait a sec!”

“Where’s he going?” Blake asked as Shane ran down the hall off into the backroom.

“No clue bro,” Dustin told him, “but he seems to know where he’s going?”

Cam sighed. “So I time-traveled back into the past, witness the birth of an evil space ninja, and destroyed an alien using a helicopter. Not bad for my first day on the job,” he said aloud. “And once I get my samurai saber connected directly into the Ninja Ops mainframe I should be able to continue my strategic duties even in the field.”

“Got it!” Shane shouted from the back of Ninja Ops, his words making the other Rangers grin.

“What?” Cam asked them suspiciously. “Why are you all smiling?”

“So, we may not be mainframe experts like you,” Hunter started.

“But we _do_ know how to use our morphers to get something printed here,” Tori finished.

“Wait, is _that_ why we keep running out of printer paper?” Cam asked her.

“Dude, school’s bogus homework is why,” Dustin informed him. “Besides, we didn’t print something paper this time.”

“We were fooling around with the uniform design,” Shane said as he walked up to Cam, “and made this.”

“Guys,” Cam whispered, taking in the sight of a Ninja Uniform with a bright, emerald slash on it, the samurai insignia in place of where the Academy’s normally was.

“We didn’t think anyone would be wearing it,” Shane admitted, “but if you’re gonna be part of the team, you gotta have the gear.”

“I…thank you.”

“It takes a powerful man to choose his own destiny,” Sensei Watanabe said as Cam quickly threw the uniform over his clothes. “Congratulations Cam. No father could be prouder of his son.”

“And Mom?” Cam whispered, running a hand over the uniform, noting its leathery feel.

“Your mother was beautiful, and brave, and kind,” Cam’s father told him. “She would’ve been proud of you, and I cannot think of _anyone_ wiser than her in choosing you as the bearer of the Green Samurai amulet."


	15. Part III: Between a Rock and a Hard Place




	16. Chapter XI: When the Stars Go Blue

_“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”_

  * Jane Austen



 

 

_April 19, 2003, 3:15 PM_

North Blue Bay Harbor was unlike the more well-known southern coastline of Blue Bay. Full of cliffs and caverns that ran around pebble and dark sand beaches, the rockier outcroppings often meant the beach was cooler, quieter, shadier, and less trafficked by tourists in the spring and summer. Among the ninjas of the Wind Academy, the solitude had long been rumored to be part of why the souls of the evil dead ninjas had chosen to converge at the mountain that rested near the end of the cliff line, as if the water and crags had bound them where they could no longer harm the living.

This isolation also made it the perfect outdoor training ground for a new Green Samurai Ranger.

“Show-off,” Tori muttered to Dustin and Shane. The three of them had been sparring on the beach while Cam had practiced moving in his new Ranger uniform, pausing only when they saw him attempt to try to scale the wall of a cliff, managing to run halfway up it before slipping and falling onto the sand.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to take points off for that landing,” Dustin said as they walked over to where the Green Samurai  Ranger lay spread out on the beach shore. “You okay?”

“Ugh, I’m good.” Cam replied, brushing sand off his training uniform as he stood up. “Let me try that again.”

“How about we bag it for today?” Shane replied as he helped Cam stand up. “You look beat.”

“No I-I’m good.”

Just then Cam’s morpher beeped.

“Hello?” Tori said as she pressed down on the morpher’s communication button.

“Hello?” came out a tinny voice that Tori recognized as their Sensei.

“We’re here Sensei,” Shane answered.

“Can one of you ask Cameron to come back to Ninja Ops?” Sensei Watanabe said. “I’m having trouble with the mainframe. I must’ve pressed the button he said not to...”

Cam sighed. “Coming Dad,” he said, looking regretfully at the other Rangers as he let go of the communication button. “I told him not to mess with the supercomputer, but so much for that. I’ll see you guys soon.”

“I’m worried about Cam,” Tori said as they watched the man streak away around the cliffs. “He runs all of Ninja Ops, and now he’s a Ranger on top of that.”

“Dude needs some downtime,” Dustin agreed, “or he’s gonna seriously burnout.”

“You think Cam’s going to give himself a break?” Shane asked.

“When do _any_ of us give ourselves a break?” Tori pointed out. “I mean, here we are, beautiful North Pacific shoreline, and we’re sparring.”

“Hey, at least it’s not Ninja Ops.”

“But shouldn’t we be, you know, chilling out?”

“It _is_ April,” Dustin said. “The weather was bound to get warmer eventually.”

“Dustin…”

“Tor, we see each other all the time,” Dustin continued, flinging an arm around her. “Like, I see you and Shane more than my folks, and I _live_ with them.”

“I know, I just, I wanna know what’s up with you guys,” Tori said, glancing at the harbor water. “Life isn’t all about being a Power Ranger and extreme sports.”

“Don’t say that,” Shane laughed. “You’ll jinx us!”

Tori rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You guys would tell me if something went down right? Right?” she asked again when Dustin and Shane didn’t immediately reply.

For a moment the only sound was that of the waves crashing into the shore.

“Guys—’

“Dustin kissed Hunter!” Shane blurted out.

“Dude!” Dustin said, letting go of Tori.

“ _What?!_ ” Tori shouted, staring at the other two men.

“Tor, not so loud!” Dustin hissed.

“What, the _beach_ can’t hear about—”

“How did you know Hunter and I kissed?” Dustin was asking Shane.

Shane shrugged. “I saw you guys cuddling after Toxipod,” he said, kicking idly at the sand.

“Bro, guys cuddle.”

“Not like _that_ they don’t.”

“Wait, hold up,” Tori said. “Dustin kissed Hunter after Toxipod?”

“Yeah…” Dustin said, a goofy grin growing on his face.

“And somehow it skipped both of your minds to _tell_ _me_?”

“I mean, you were kinda already falling for Blake?” Shane said hesitantly, glancing at Dustin. “I thought hearing about that might cross some weird line.”

“I can hear about one of my best friends kissing my- Blake’s brother. I can handle that,” Tori insisted. “There’s no weird line there.”

“...wait, Blake’s not your boyfriend yet?” Dustin asked her. “I thought the two of you had that locked down.”

“Did Blake say that?”

“Well—”

“‘Cause I didn’t. We’ve barely spent any time around each other outside of Rangering.”

“Sometimes Rangering can be enough,” Shane pointed out, sounding quiet to Tori.

“If that was true then I’d be worried about you and Hunter,” Tori told him.

“What? No! There’s- I mean-”

“Hunter does think you’re kinda hot,” Dustin said.

“Hunter thinks _Shane’s_ Hot?” Tori asked him.

Dustin nodded. “Yeah, it’s come up around the track a few times,” Dustin said sheepishly. “ _Really_ quietly though. Like, I’m pretty sure Hunter’s not open about it or anything, but I think Blake can only take the pining so much, and Hunter knows I’m not going to hate on him for it.”

“But he kissed you,” Shane told the Yellow Ranger.

“Dude, that doesn’t mean he _doesn’t_ think you’re hot, it just means he thinks I’m hot too. It’s a compliment.”

“Great,” Tori said, throwing her hands up in the air. “So we’ve split the Bradleys between us. Sorta.”

“We haven’t split Hunter!” Shane said. “I mean, he hasn’t kissed _me_ yet or anything.”

“Trust me, _I know_ ,” Dustin said, running a hand idly through his hair. “At this rate I kinda wish he would.”

“You know, you seem bizarrely okay with this,” Tori said to him.

“Well _yeah_ , I mean, he’s not dating me either,” Dustin pointed out. “It was only a kiss.”

“It was only a kiss?” Shane repeated. “Dude, _cuddling_.”

Dustin sighed. “Okay, it was a _really_ _righteous_ kiss,” he admitted. “It’s not like I’m wearing his track jacket or throwing you over for him. This isn’t, like, _Dawson’s Creek_ or Smallville or something.”

“Dude, don’t talk to me about Dawson’s Creek,” Shane muttered. “It’s ending next month, and I am so not ready for it.”

“No way!”

“Way.”

“Do you think Cam knows?” Tori asked in a whisper.

Dustin and Shane glanced at each other, and for a brief moment, the silliness of the three of them standing in a small cluster on an isolated beach struck Tori.

“About Dustin and Hunter or me and Hunter? Shane asked her at last. “Because he _definitely_ knows about the first part. He was there too.”

“He probably knows about you and Hunter too,” Dustin told the Red Ranger. “Pretty sure we can all feel the tension coming off those kicks miles away.”

“Except for Tori.”

“Because _Tori_ was expecting her friends to tell her when they do things like _make-out with other male team members,”_ Tori stated. “You should be glad I’m not straight up _killing_ you right now!”

“See, I told she’d do that,” Shane said to Dustin.

“Which is why I told you we should _tell_ _her_ , but it’s not that big a deal, guys,” Dustin said, frustrated. “We kissed. It was good. But that’s it. It was _only_ a kiss.”

“Wait, you talked about this?” Tori asked.

“Except you now work together,” Shane said, ignoring her.

“You work with him too.”

“And ride together.”

“Yeah, with _Blake,_ it’s not like we’re making out in front of his little brother man.”

“Okay, you know what? I’m just- I’m just gonna go to Storm Chargers and do homework,” Tori interrupted. “I need to process this, and you two...I don’t even _know_ what you need to do, I’ve never had to do crush negotiations before, but I’m pretty sure it involves things I don’t want to watch.”

“Tor, wait,” Shane said.

“Yeah?” Tori asked, pausing right as she was about to start ninja streak back to town.

“Is...I know the whole kissing thing is throwing you off, but it’s _just_ the kissing part, yeah?” Shane asked slowly. “Not the part where it’s _us_?”

Tori sighed. “Shane,” she said. “I know surfers have a reputation when it comes to the hating, but I’m not one of them. I’m perfectly okay with you and Dustin doing whatever with other guys.”

“Oh thank—”

“It’s the part where you _forgot to tell me about it_ that annoys me,” Tori stressed. “Like, I told you guys I was interested in Dill within hours of seeing him. You both went a month before telling me you’re into Hunter, and I get that this is one of those things you do on your own speed, but _a month_. When you’re seeing me and Blake be…well, it’s just a little irritating.”

“Oh! Ah, on that case, I’m bi and single,” Dustin said hurriedly. “Emphasis on the single. And the bi. Equal opportunity emphasis there.”

“Noted,” Tori said, turning to look at Shane.

“...Gay, and single,” Shane whispered. “And _really_ not out.”

“Dude, I’m not formally out,” Dustin told him. “I’m just open about it.”

“What?” Shane asked him confusedly.

“Okay, single-bi and sorta out, single-gay and not out,” Tori interrupted. “Got it. And I’m straight and single. Emphasis on the _single_.”

“And Blake and Hunter—” Shane began.

“Can tell us all what they’re calling themselves when they want to,” Tori told him. “And so can Cam, for that matter. If he ever says anything about it. Otherwise, this is staying between us and Blue Bay Harbor.”

“Wait, _does_ Cam date?” Dustin asked curiously. “What would that even be like?”

“Bro,” Tori heard Shane say as she streaked away, “what part of ‘and so can Cam’ did you miss?”

 

 

_April 19, 2003, 4:00 PM_

“I can’t believe those guys,” Tori muttered to herself as she sat in the lounge of Storm Chargers, staring at the green-colored _Introduction to Physics_ textbook surrounded by class notes on the lounge table. She had managed to get through English, and had thought about trying to do her math homework, but physics had a test coming up.

Unfortunately her surfing experience apparently didn’t transfer well to calculating sound waves.

“Oh let’s not tell Tori ‘cause she likes the guy’s brother,” she grumbled to herself. “Seriously?”

“Yo Tori, what’s up?” she heard a voice call out.

“Huge test next week,” Tori said, feeling a smile grow on her face as she saw Blake walking towards her. “What’s with the getup?”

“This?’ Blake said, pulling at the sleeveless t-shirt he wore. “It’s...a bike tee?”

“It’s _camo_ , Blake,” Tori said. “It’s _blue_ _camo_ , and I don’t remember seeing that shell choker or that bracer on you before. You go on a shopping spree?”

“Nah. One of the vendors sent along some freebies for us staff with the latest merch shipment,” Blake admitted. “Trust me, this is the tamest stuff. Like, you should’ve seen the look on Hunter’s face when Dustin took his shirt off and—”

“Free stuff,” Tori said hurriedly, really _not_ wanting to imagine how Hunter had looked at Dustin. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah. Oh, I snagged some of it for you!”

“Really?”

Blake nodded. “Yeah. There was a sample of new sport scents for girls,” Blake said, holding up a bottle in his hand. It was shaped to look like an old perfume bottle, oval and kinda clear with a long squeeze bulb connected to the top. “I thought you might want to try one?”

“Sure, I’d love to try one!”

“Sweet,” Blake said excitedly before squeezing the bottle’s valve.

_What_ was _that_?! Tori thought as an oily, sickly vanilla scent spread through the air. “It really,” she said, forcing herself to smile as the smell permeated the room, “really smells great.”

“So you like it?”

_No going back now I guess_. “Yeah!” Tori said, bracing herself as Blake began to spray more of the perfume around her. “I don’t like to wear _too_ much though. A lot of these wash off pretty fast.”

“Oh, well if you want more, let me know,” Blake told her.

“I will,” Tori said. “And thanks for thinking of me.”

Blake blushed. “Be seeing you Tor,” he said as he left the lounge.

“Later!” Tori called after him, waiting until the Navy Thunder Ranger was out of sight before she began to cough. _Shane’s really going to have to air ninja this out of here,_ she thought to herself as she began to tear up, raising a hand unconsciously to wipe at her eyes.

_“_ Oh, Wow, Tor.”

“Dustin?” Tori said, opening her eyes to see Dustin standing there, dressed in the yellow shirt and white tee that had become his standard since becoming the Yellow Ranger.

“Ugh, it smells like my grandma’s feet in here,” he told her, pinching his nose shut.

“Your grandma’s been dead 10 years.”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, well, tell it to that sports company.”

“Man, that’s what Blake- oh, whoa, this burns!”

“It was nice of him to think of me,” Tori told him. “Unlike some people.”

“Okay, I deserve that,” Dustin said as he tried to wave away the scent of the perfume, “but you must _really_ like him to put up with this.”

Tori laughed. “He, ah, mentioned you were trying on stuff?”

“Yeah, B3 sent us freebies stuff.”

“B3?”

“Bro, Babes, and Bikes.”

“Sounds…”

“Oh yeah, it’s totally poser stuff,” Dustin assured her, “but it sells pretty well, and every once in a while they send a nice freebie thing, so.”

“Anything worth it this time around?”

Dustin scratched the back of his head. “Mostly office supplies and a few keyrings. Oh, and some yellow camo stuff, like this track hoodie thing I tried on.”

“Yellow camo is a thing.”

“Yeah. It felt pretty good to me, to be honest, but Hunter seemed pretty wigged out by it,” Dustin admitted, shrugging, “and anything that could wig one of us out is a definite no go.”

“Nice call,” Tori said. “But he wasn’t wigged out by the hoodie.”

“He wasn’t?” Dustin asked confused. “How do you know?”

“Blake told me,” Tori said. “Hunter was very not wigged out.”

“So then what- oh. Oh!” Dustin said. “You mean he was—?”

“Guess all that extra sparring’s been working for you.”

Dustin smiled. “Glad something is.”

“Hey, maybe if you and Shane tried on clothes together this could end sooner.”

“Anything I’d wear would be way too tight on Shane. It wouldn’t be a fair fashion show.”

“Oh.”

“So…you, ah, heading back to the books?”

Tori sighed. “I’m thinking I need to run from the cloud of Rita here.”

Dustin laughed. “Yeah. Hey, we could grab Shane and do beach time again?”

“You think he’d be up for it?” Tori asked, already beginning to pack her bags.

“I think so. I mean, he liked it before feelings got involved.”

“I still can’t believe you guys didn’t tell me.”

Dustin groaned. “I mean, what was there to say, you know? Nothing’s happened.”

“So you keep saying, but with our luck it’s just a matter of time.”

“Fine, probably nothing,” Dustin grumbled. “Hunter hasn’t made a move or anything.”

“Can you blame him?” Tori asked. “It’s not just surfers who have a rep, and here’s two...somewhat good-looking, cool people, one of whom also bikes, who’ve known each other for years and thinks he’s cute.”

“So?”

“So it’s not hard to see how Hunter could’ve gotten frozen in picking between the two of you.”

“Kinda makes me wish he’d pick both of us.”

Tori froze, her hand holding the last of her notes above her backpack. “You’d...be up for sharing Hunter with Shane?”

“Maybe?” Dustin said after a moment, thumbing his nose. “If I have to share with anyone I guess I’d be okay with Shane. I dunno. I’ll have to think about it some more.”

“That’s...okay, if just _thinking_ about beach time leads to this, we may need to raincheck beach time for a while,” Tori said, moving to finish packing. “I can only take so many dramatic love reveals.”

“Yeah…hey, let’s go see Cam!” Dustin shouted. “N _o_ _way_ Cam’s revealing dramatic love crushes.”

 

 

_April 19, 2003, 4:25 PM_

_Wow, it’s kinda empty in here,_ Tori thought as she, Dustin, and Shane entered Ninja Ops, only to see Sensei Watanabe standing on a nearby bench in an otherwise abandoned hall. _Where is everyone_?”

“Hey Sensei, is Cam around?” Dustin asked.

“Yeah,” Tori added, “we were going to hang around, and thought he might want to come with.”

“I have not seen him all day,” Sensei Watanabe replied calmly. “He fixed the supercomputer and then went to put some of his tools away in the storage closet. He hasn’t come out yet.”

“Dude, I hope he hasn’t wiped out in there,” Dustin muttered to Shane, who was just about to reply when—

“D-Man! Tori Tor! S-Dog in the house!”

_Oh. My. Ninjor._ Tori thought as she watched someone she thought was Cam appear. Only this Cam wasn’t dressed in a ninja uniform or polo shirt, but— “ _what_ are you wearing?” Tori asked, hearing Shane begin to snicker behind her.

“Oh this?” Cam said, pointing at what appeared to be green camo pants. “I got tired of wearing the same old rags, so I busted out the phat gear.”

“We were just going to the beach and we thought you might wanna come with us,” Dustin said cautiously. Tori noticed his eyes were still focusing on the stretchy green beanie that Cam had shoved over his head.

Not that Tori blamed him. It was the least terrifying part about the entire outfit.

“Dude, I’m _so_ down with that!” Cam shouted. “I can get with chilling at the beach with my peeps.”

“Your Peeps?!” Tori laughed, hearing more than seeing Shane finally break down himself.

Cam smiled as he walked over towards them. “Tori,” he said, flinging an arm around her shoulder, “may I say you’re looking particularly babe-a-licious this morning?”

“Thanks, I think?”

“Welp, gotta bail,” Cam said, leading them back towards the entrance. “See you later furry dude!”

“ _Furry_ _dude_? What has gotten into Cam?” Tori hissed to Dustin as they turned to go.

“I dunno,” Dustin said. “But at least he kinda pulls it off. I mean, he didn’t call Sensei a rodent or anything.”

 

 

_April 19, 2003, 6:01 PM_

“Great, this is- this just great,” Tori muttered.

“Ah, I know Tor.”

“Really Dustin?” she shouted at the Yellow Ranger. “We’ve been trapped by an evil alien inside _perfume bottles._ ”

“Hey at least it got us away from Bizarro-Cam,” Dustin told her. “Can you believe he got distracted by a prize race car? He doesn’t even like the _Tsunami cycles_ that much. “

Tori sighed. “No , I can’t,” she said as she slumped down against the blue-tinted edge of the perfume bottle she was trapped in, the light streaming through making the _No. 47_ written on it stand out prominently. “Or that he’s really that great at extreme sports,” she added, thinking how much of the afternoon had been spent in shock as she and the other Rangers watched Cam board, bike, and surf like a pro despite never having seen him practice any of it even once. “So much for him not being dramatic.”

“Right?” Dustin asked, leaning against the edge of his own bottle to look through the glass at her. “I mean, nobody goes their first time on a bike and outrides factory pro racers, that just doesn’t happen.”

“Do you think it’s a ninja thing?”

“No. Not even Sensei could master a bike that fast. Maybe a skateboard, but not a bike.”

“’Cause a bike’s less hard?”

“More like ‘cause Shane took to it pretty fast and Sensei’s an air ninja too.”

“That- so what do you think happened to Cam?” Tori asked him, deciding not to try to imagine Shane as a sensei. “Mindwarp?”

“Nah, too convenient,” Dustin thought aloud, leaning against the yellow glass of his own bottle “Maybe a clone?”

“A clone. That’s the best you’ve got?”

“I mean, there’s identical twin brother—”

“Given what happened to Lothor I sure I hope not,” Tori said. “Evil Cam would be insane. _I_ think-hey, look!”

“What?”

“It’s Shane and the others!” Tori told him. “Hey Shane! Over here!”

“Over here!” Dustin shouted after her, and the two watched as Shane came over towards the shelves that the alien had placed their bottles on.

“Okay, okay, which one are you guys,” they heard Shane muttering to himself.

“Shane we’re over here!” Tori shouted, the sound loud enough that it caused Shane to glance over at her bottle.”

“Tor?” Shane asked, leaning in.

“Shane!”

“Bro, over her!” Dustin shouted from the bottle next to her.

“Don’t worry, I gotcha!” Shane replied, grabbing her and Dustin off the shelf.

Just then there was an explosion.

 

 

_April 19, 2003, 6:30 PM_

“So let me get this straight,” Dustin asked Shane. “Bizarro-Cam was a computer program?”

“Yeah,” the Red Ranger replied. “He’s a real Cyber-Cam.”

After the battle (which had ended after the _real_ Cam had shown up), Hunter and Blake and headed back home while Cam had taken the double of him back in his chopper, leaving Tori and Dustin plenty of time to catch up on what had happened with Shane on the way back to Ninja Ops.

“Okay…”

“Well hey, your clone theory was right after all,” Tori pointed out to Dustin. “Congrats on that.”

“I guess?” Dustin said as they entered Ninja Ops. “Hey Cam,” he added, seeing the teenager sitting in his chair in front of the Ninja Ops mainframe once again.

“Sup?”

“Ah no,” Tori said as the chair turned around to reveal Cyber-Cam sitting there.

“ _What_ are _you_ doing here _poser_!?” Dustin shouted, throwing his hands up defensively.

“Don’t worry, Dustin,” the real Cam said, walking out from besides the mainframe computer to stand between Cyber-Cam and the Yellow Ranger. “I’ve reprogrammed him to be totally dedicated to his work. He’ll stay in Ninja Ops from now on.”

“Good,” Dustin replied, slowly lowering his hands. “I don’t want to see that guy on a bike again _anytime soon_.”

“Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game,” Cyber-Cam replied.

“His personality still needs a little work,” Tori muttered.

“Hey, why did you make Cyber-Cam so good at sports?” Shane asked suddenly. “I thought you weren’t interested in them.”

_Huh,_ Tori thought, _that’s…actually a good point._

“I guess because I’ve never had any time to learn that stuff,” Cam was saying.

“Ah, but you do now, right?” Dustin said.

“Yeah? Yeah, I guess do,” Cam replied.

“Good,” Dustin said. “‘Cause I’m taking you- the real you- back to the track tomorrow for a rematch.

“I’ll do skating,” Shane added.

“And I think I might take you to a cooking class. What?” Tori said when the men looked at her. “You two don’t know how to cook, and I’m not showing Cam how to do female competitive surfing.”

“All of that sounds great to me,” Cam said, smiling.

 

 

_April 23, 2003, 3:17 PM_

“So that’s basically how boarding with Shane went,” Cam was telling Tori. “One part me managing to balance on the skateboard long enough to cross the park, one part Shane trying to comfort a skater over S Club 7 breaking up.”

“I’m glad that you enjoyed it,” Tori replied. The past four days had been a whiplash of Cam trying out the other Rangers sports. To Tori it sounded like skateboarding had been the best experience for him. At least, it sounded he had liked it way more than surfing, which he’d left behind in the sand after spending a whole afternoon with Tori trying, and failing, to get upright on the thing.

“I did. Felt pretty natural to me, but I’m glad to be getting a break from team tryouts,” Cam said, gesturing towards the front of _Storm Chargers_ where Kelly stood in front of the cooking display demonstrating how to make a smoothie. “Not that the past few days haven’t been great. Dad wasn’t kidding when he says I needed to get out more.”

“Not many guys would take me up on the cooking class though,” Tori said, glancing down for a second at the class program in her hand. “I mean, you saw how the other guys almost bolted before they saw the other girls.”

“Tori, If you think Shane, Dustin, Blake, and Hunter only stayed because of the other surfer girls here, I have news for you,” Cam whispered her.

“Oh really? What’s that?”

“They stayed for you.”

Tori rolled her eyes. “Blake maybe, but not the others.”

Cam nodded. “It’s true that Shane, Dustin, and Hunter only have eyes for each other, _Dimitria_ knows why,” he said softly. “But I don’t think they’d be that unfair to the other girls.”

“…I was wondering if you knew about that.”

Cam huffed, a sound Tori suspected would’ve been a full snort if the employer of four of his friends and all of his fellow Rangers hadn’t been talking about using bananas instead of milk in smoothies at the front of the room. “I spent most of my life surrounded by hormonal teenage ninjas trying to sneak around my dad Tori,” he murmured. “You think I can’t tell when three ninjas are sneaking pining looks at each other? I _almost_ complained to Dad about it after the last group sparring session because there’s no way Shane or Hunter can improve if they keep pulling their punches like that.”

“I should’ve known you’d know,” Tori said softly. “I mean, I didn’t…”

“But that’s because you had your own lover boy to deal with,” Cam said.

Tori followed where he was looking to where Blake sat with a scowl on his face. “We haven’t done anything besides looking either since that pig alien attack at the film festival,” she admitted.

“Clearly that was enough, if the way he’s been glaring at me means anything.”

Tori felt her cheeks blush. “I guess. What about you Cam?” she added after a moment. “Anybody catching your eye?”

“And that is how you make a Storm Chargers Smoothie!” Kelly said loudly from the front, drawing Tori’s attention back to where she stood pouring smoothie samples out into small plastic cups. “Thanks for coming to this cooking demonstration! Feel free to try out the smoothies, and if you like it, let me know, and I’ll show you where you can find the ingredients provided by today’s sponsor, Real Sports Pro Drinks, in the store.”

“Guess we better try it,” Tori said as she got up.

“Yeah we should,” Cam said.

The pair had just reached the table in time to hear Blake say “Pass the lips and over the gum—”

“Look out stomach here it comes,” Tori finished, downing a bit of the sample herself, Cam managing to drink his sample shortly after her. “Not very sweet is it?”

“Nothing will ever be as sweet as you,” Cam said beside her.

“Ah….thanks I guess?” Tori said as she looked back and forth between Cam and Blake, both of whom were staring at- “Why are you two grinning at me like some lovesick baboons?”

“‘Cause he is one?” Cam said suddenly as he glared at Blake. “Hey, why don’t you go swing in a tree and let the humans have a conversation?”

“Hey, back off, I saw her first,” Blake replied, reaching over to shove Cam.

_What in the_ \- “guys?”

“This is for you Tor,” Cam said as he flung smoothie dust at Blake.

_Oh no,_ Tori thought as the powder began to spread.

_“Food Fight!”_ she heard Hunter shout from behind her, and suddenly smoothie and powder was flying everywhere.

“I’m getting out of here,” Tori muttered as she dodged a cup of smoothie powder and ran out of the store.

 

 

_April 23, 2003, 5:00 PM_

“You know,” Tori said to the cactus prop. “Today just hasn’t been my day. I mean, all I wanted was to see a cooking demonstration, maybe figure out how to make a new smoothie or two. And what do I get?” she asked, gesturing around her. “I get kidnapped by kelzacks and tied up, for the first time in _weeks_ , to a reinforced cardboard cactus— no offense— in the backstage of a TV studio set where an evil space ninja overload is filming a crazy version of a 1950s sitcom. Oh, and Blake _and_ Cam tried to give me a socket wrench set and acne face wash as presents, which I’m pretty sure means Marah and Kapri had to have drugged them somehow because they can’t both like me like that and there’s no way Cam would be stupid enough to give me acne wash without being under something. What is _up_ with that?”

“Oh yeah,” she added. “You’re a cactus. You can’t talk back.”

“Just wait till my next show,” Tori heard Lothor say from behind her. “When I tell them to jump off a cliff.”

_I guess his take must’ve finished,_ she thought to herself as she heard the evil ninja and who she guessed was one of the generals walk away, the sound of a door shutting suggesting to her they must’ve gone outside. _Now’s my chance._

“Sensei?” Tori asked as she tore the bindings off her hands, hoping that the pressure had been enough to activate the communication button. “Lothor’s trying to brainwash people through TV.”

“He’s a little late for that,” Sensei replied. “But now you must help Blake and Cam.”

_Oh for the LOVE of—_ “where are they?” Tori asked aloud.

“They’re at the beach fighting each other instead of the alien Lothor has sent,” Sensei told her. “I regret to say that I think they were fighting over you.”

“I think they’re under some kind of spell,” Tori said resignedly. “I’m on my way.”

“I hope that is the case,” Sensei said, the words almost being lost as Tori streaked to the beach, arriving just in time to see Blake try to slash at Cam while the alien laughed a few yards away from them on the sand.

“Hello guys?” Tori asked as she morphed and ran across the otherwise empty, sandy beach towards them. “Isn’t that the alien over there?”

“It’s time you know the truth Tori!” Blake shouted in response.

“Guys I—” Tori began, only to feel herself get knocked to the ground, the sensation of searing pain flashing across her back the only notice she had that the alien must’ve fired something at her.

“Tori!” Blake and Cam shouted.

“Tori, are you okay?” Blake asked.

“Cam, Blake,” Tori gritted out as she struggled to stand. “You guys are under a spell. You’ve got to fight it.”

“This is no spell,” Cam replied.

“Yeah, my feelings are real, and I’m going to prove it to you!” Blake cried. “I’ll protect you Tori!”

“Blake, don’t!” Tori shouted, watching as the Navy Thunder Ranger moved to stand between her and the alien, staying in place as round after round of blasts were fired into him.

“You’ve gotta get out of here!” Blake replied.

“Blake!”

“Blake, no!” Cam shouted as the pair watched Blake become swarmed in a bubble of smoke and laser light, the edge of his Thunder Ranger weapon flying off in shards onto the sand.

_Blake,_ Tori thought to herself.

“He- wait,” Cam said. “Wait- is he—”

“Impossible!” the alien cried out as the smoke cleared, revealing Blake, still morphed, standing upon the stand. “Nobody can be _that_ strong!”

“ _Nothing_ can beat the power of love!” Blake shouted back. “This is for you Tori!”

“Okay Blake, you win,” Tori heard Cam say, before he shouted. “Here, catch!”

Tori watched as Blake caught the shard of his weapon and, with a fury she hadn’t seen before, strike at the alien until he at last fell onto the sand and exploded in a shower of sparks, a shower that was just dim enough for her to make out the shadow of a pink heart emerging form Blake and shattering.

_Guess that must’ve been the spell,_ she thought to herself.

 

 

_April 23, 2003, 6:04 PM_

“This has been a day,” Tori muttered to herself.

The ride back to Ninja Ops had been incredibly awkward. Sensei Watanabe had sent the mobile command center to the beach to grab them, resulting in Cam sitting up front to drive, Blake sitting near the bikes in the back, and Tori sitting in a chair in the center of the car. There had been no talking, at all, and she had been thankful when they arrived to escape the mix of sheepish embarrassment that had hung in the car. So thankful that she had decided to avoid seeing Sensei hear the report from Cam and Blake about what had happened, choosing instead to wait in the main hall of Ninja Ops for Dustin, Shane, and Hunter to come back from the megazord battle they had been forced to fight while she and the others had been at the beach.

_The fight was probably as awkward as that ride was_ , she had thought as she grabbed a pillow and settled down onto the ops floor, _but at least I won’t go a month before hearing how what’s basically their first Ranger date went._

_“_ If this is a love hangover,” Tori suddenly heard Cam say, raising her head a little to see him and Blake walking into the hall, “then I hope to never fall in love again.”

“I hear that,” Blake replied. “Oh, ah, at least not while I’m under a spell?”

Tori laughed from where she sat on the floor of Ninja Ops as she watched the two slowly settle down beside her. “So Blake,” she started.

Blake looked at her startled. “Ye- yeah?”

“Now that we’ve gotten past the most awkward ride ever—”

“No kidding,” Cam muttered. “Can we pretend this day never happened?”

“—what were you going to tell me when you said it’s time for me to know the truth?”

“Ah, nothing, nothing at all,” Blake stammered blushing.

“Somehow I think it’s more than that,” Tori said.

“No, but seriously, _please_ , not in front of the formerly charmed,” Cam interrupted.

“You fought pretty hard for a guy who was charmed,” Blake said. “You sure you don’t have feelings for Tori?”

“I- we- look don’t get me wrong, Tori- you- she _is_ aesthetically pleasing,” Cam interrupted. “I respect for her being the most emotionally mature, grounded person besides me in this place, and for her surfing skills, of course. She’s practically my sister. But I don’t like her like _that_.”

“Aw, thanks Cam,” Tori said. “I appreciate your respect.”

“Now _you_ , on the other hand,” Cam said to Blake, “I think we _both_ know what you wanted to tell her.”

“I—”

“Dude, I don’t know who ordered takeout, but thank you, ‘cause I am starving!” Dustin said loudly as he walked in holding boxes and buckets of takeout.

“I didn’t order anything,” Tori said when they looked at her. “Did one of you?”

“We come in peace,” Hunter said as he and Shane walked into Ninja Ops, holding what appeared to be a giant tray bearing three tiers of fried chicken that had been arranged on it in the shape of a sun.

“And we bring a peace offering since your cooking class got messed up,” Shane added. “It’s not a smoothie, but I think we all need a break from those.”

“And maybe the beach,” Blake said.

“Thanks Shane,” Tori said.

_And saved by the chicken,_ she mentally added to herself as the she watched the other Rangers begin to grab at the food and settle around the Nina Ops hall, Dustin and Shane choosing to go sit in the corner near the scroll tower while Blake and Hunter headed across from them towards the table.

“Don’t worry, he’ll admit it sometime,” Cam whispered to her suddenly, reaching over her hand to grab food from the bucket before settling down next to her.

Tori smiled. “Thanks,” she mumbled back as she reached in to grab a piece of chicken herself. “But I think I can wait.”

“Oh?”

“I’d like my boyfriend to be fully, non-drugged in love with me.”

“I think that’s wise.”

Tori laughed. “It’s pretty basic to want someone who wants you too.”

Cam grinned for a moment. “You know,” he said carefully as he bit into his own chicken, “I never answered your question before the Smoothie Strike happened.”

“No you didn’t,” Tori whispered after a moment. “So, who do you have your eye on?”

“Everyone.”

Tori blinked. “Everyone?” she said. “Like, you’re interested in—”

“No, just that I’m- I mean, It’s kinda my job—”

“—Of course!” Tori said hurriedly.” I-you wouldn’t want you to mess that up—”

“—so I can’t…play favorites, or anything,” Cam finished quickly. “I mean, you’ll always be my best sister though, I wasn’t kidding about that.”

“And again, I thank you for that,” Tori muttered quietly behind her chicken, suspecting that Cam’s years around ninjas would mean he’d still hear her even if her mouth was blocked. “Any brothers on that list?”

“Blake, obviously,” Cam said. “Seeing as how he’s trying to date my sister.”

Tori blushed. “And the rest of these guys?” she asked.

“That I don’t know to be honest. There’s already a lot of tension between the three of them, and I’ve—“

“What?” Tori prompted.

Cam looked quickly around, as if to make sure nobody was around to hear him. “Ninja Academies aren’t exactly known for encouraging inter-academy relationships,” he said softly. “And when you’re the Sensei’s kid, well, dating is pretty much a no-go.”

“Doesn’t seem to have phased Hunter much.”

“Still, I’d be at a pretty strong disadvantage, even if I was interested,” Cam said. “Which I’m not.”

“You know, I wonder how your mother’s side of the family would’ve felt,” Tori said as she finished eating. “Are Samurai values different? I mean, I know you said you had a great step-uncle who was gunning for your mom to get married, but how did they feel about dating and stuff?”

“That…is a really good question,” Cam said after swallowing a bit of chicken. “I should look into that.”

“Hey, what’s with all the whispering?” Dustin called out from over in the corner. “What are you talking about over there?”

“Oh nothing important,” Cam said, smiling at Tori.

“Yeah, just…about how nice you all are,” Tori told him.

“And how great you all fought with each other. I’m sure Tori really missed being in that cockpit,” Cam added, winking at her.

“Aw, we missed you too Tor!”

“It was pretty righteous,” Shane admitted. “We should so do that again.”

“Not today we’re not,” Hunter said firmly. “I’m exhausted.”

“I hear that,” Tori said.


	17. Chapter XII: Dig a Little Deeper

_“The Only Journey is the Journey Within.”_

  * Rainer Maria Rilke



 

 

_May 1, 2003, 4:15 PM_

Dustin kicked absently at the track, dust flying into the air. _Man, today is not my day_.

It wasn’t that he lost the race earlier against Hunter and Blake. Dustin knew their bikes had larger engines than his, and he _was_ pretty sure that with a little work he could tighten his bike to get a little closer to theirs. It wasn’t even Dwayne Wheeler taking his bike, ‘cause honestly the biker community in Blue Bay wasn’t that large, and Dustin was pretty sure he’d find the guy _eventually_.

It was just having it happen around _Hunter_.

Dustin hadn’t gotten to know the Crimson Ranger as much as he wanted to in the past month, but between the two of them working at Storm Chargers, riding on the track, and fighting as Rangers, Dustin had managed to be around him enough to have a learned a little. He knew how happy Hunter was that his _Storm Chargers_ paycheck actually covered the few bills of the Thunder Shack, as he and Blake had decided to call their home. He knew that Hunter worried about when Rangering would let him get his GED or if he should at all, and how happy Hunter was that Blake _was_ managing to catch up with all the school stuff they’d missed out on after the Thunder Academy had been destroyed to get his diploma on time.

Dustin also knew how Hunter looked when he was mounted on his bike, sweat and Gatorade dripping off his dirty blonde hair to run down his bike suit. How his voice grew gritty after ninja streaking, or how he hated the harsh smell of Axe but liked the piney scent of Old Spice. How good it had felt running beside him and Shane last week when escaping the horde of fangirls who’d been brainwashed by Lothor’s sitcom. Not the running away part, that had been terrifying, but the warmth of the accidental touches and the scorched streak air that had wrapped around Dustin like a warm summer storm and had led to Dustin thinking about what Tori had asked about him and them.

And all of _those_ thoughts and feelings had been really, really, _distractingly_ righteous. Distracting enough that it had made Dustin really annoyed to wind up looking stupid in front of the Crimson Ranger.

 _Get your brain back on the bike,_ Dustin told himself as he had reached one of the pit stops along the track. _One bad race doesn’t make you look_ that _bad, you just gotta_ —

Just then Dustin noticed there was a girl walking along the track, a few bends ahead of where he could see a batch of motocrossers riding down. “Hey. Hey! Watch out!” Dustin shouted at her.

The girl didn’t seem to hear him, or at least, she didn’t move.

 _Oh no._ “Get out of the way!” Dustin yelled as he ran over and threw himself at the girl, the force enough for him to tackle her off the track and into the straw of the pit stop.

“Hey you okay?” he asked her, scanning over her while doing his best to ignore the sound of the bike team passing by behind them. “You almost got mowed down there.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the girl said tearfully. “I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. Wait,” she said, glancing up at Dustin, “you’re—”

“Dustin,” he said, taking her in as she brushed tangled straw off her teal dress. “Hey, have we met before? You seem kinda familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” the girl said. “I guess you’ve seen one airhead you’ve seen them all.”

Dustin winced. “I know how that feels,” he muttered.

“You do?”

“Yeah, people think I’m a space-case too, but you can’t listen to them,” Dustin told her. “As long as you’re a good person, that’s what counts.”

The girl burst out crying.

 _I didn’t think it sounded_ that _bogus,_ Dustin thought as he watched the girl slowly move to sit in one of the pit-stop plastic chairs, trying to smooth out her teal dress as she sat. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I’m not a good person,” the girl sniffled. “I’m not even a good _person_.”

“…you’ve lost me.”

“Hello? Don’t you _recognize_ me?” she asked, getting up out of the chair to stand in front of him.

“No?”

The girl snapped her fingers.

 _Holy Zordon, it’s Marah,_ Dustin thought, feeling his body snap into the stance of an Earth Wind ninja as he saw her standing there in the strange outfit that Dustin had always privately thought was one part golden insect aviator goggles and one part red leather Hot Topic knockoff _._ “You’re that evil chick who’s always trying to vaporize us!”

“Relax, you’re safe,” Marah sighed, snapping her fingers again, the sound accompanying a ripple of light that wiped over her uniform and returned it to the teal, flower-printed dress and butterfly clip she had been wearing on the track. “They kicked me out because I’m not evil enough.”

Dustin stared at her. “That’s crazy!” he said at last. “You’re, like, one of the worse people I’ve ever met!”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Marah said as she sat back in the plastic chair.

“No, I’m really not,” Dustin instead as he slowly shifted out of stance. “You’re _definitely_ one of the worst people I’ve ever met.”

Marah sighed. “Well anyway, they’ve replaced me with my friend Beevil,” she told him, “and she’s _way_ meaner than me.”

Dustin looked at Marah for a second. _I wonder…_ ”Hey Marah,” he said, grabbing one of the other plastic chairs to sit in, “you ever thought about turning good?”

“What, forever?”

“Yeah!”

Marah frowned. “Yuck.”

“How do you know it’s yuck if you never tried it before?” Dustin said, hoping the line would work a whole lot better now than it had when it came to making him eat his vegetables when he was in kindergarten. “Think about it. It’d be a great way to get back at Lothor and all of them.”

“Hey…hey wait a minute, you’re right,” Marah said slowly. “That would be a great way to teach all those ingrates a lesson. But if I wanted to make them really mad, I’d have to do something so _good_ , so disgustingly _nice_ , _and_ so _heroic_ , I’d- I’d- I’d have to become a _Power Ranger_!”

Dustin watched as Marah stood up and stared into the distance. _Probably imagining herself as a Pink Ranger or something,_ he thought, wondering if the odds of that were anywhere near as high as Cam being the Green Ranger. “I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” he told Marah.

“No! No, think about it, I can help you destroy my uncle!” Marah insisted. “It’ll be so much fun!”

Dustin was about to respond when his morpher beeped. “I, ah—”

“No, no, I know,” Marah said, waving at him. “Go ahead.”

“I- okay, but I- I dunno, I don’t want to leave you hanging?”

“How about meeting me tomorrow?” Marah asked. “Blue Bay Point, same time. I’ll tell you how to beat Beevil.”

“Right on,” Dustin said, “tomorrow it is.”

 

 

_May 2, 2003, 4:14 PM_

Most of the people of Blue Bay Harbor learned in elementary school that Blue Bay Harbor was formed primarily out of two rivers. The first river, the Eel, wound itself around in pathways that made little sense to most residents and made plenty of sense to the attendees of the Wind Ninja Academy who knew how many of the Eel’s estuaries and forests had been landscaped by the early Earth Ninjas to lay on Academy grounds. The other, the Mad, flowed in from the opposite direction in a fairly even flow despite constantly running into marshes made from beavers damming it up.

Blue Bay Point was along the Mad River, and as he walked along the marshy banks in the tracksuit Kelly had mandated that all _Storm Chargers_ employees wear while working on their gear, whether in the store or on the track at its tent, Dustin wondered if maybe _he_ was the mad one. “Marah?” he called out quietly. “Marah?”

“You showed up!” a voice said, and Dustin turned fast enough to see Marah step towards him from among the marsh hedges, her hair hidden under a camouflaging nest of grass while—

“Is that Tori’s shirt?” Dustin asked.

“Hmm? Oh yeah,” Marah replied as she waded out of the hedge towards him. “She traded it for the Blue Turtle Mace.”

“Oh. Cool,” Dustin replied, reaching out to pick a stray piece of grass from her hair, the gesture making Marah blush slightly. _Well, I guess if Tori trusted her, she can’t be_ all _bad…_

“How’d the fight go?” Marah asked after a moment.

“Well, I meet Beevil,” Dustin said simply. “You’re right, she’s seriously bad.”

“I know, right? There’s no way you Rangers can do it alone. _That’s_ why you need me.”

“I-I dunno…”

“Dustin,” Marah said quietly. “Just…give me a chance to be good? Please?”

Dustin sighed “Okay. Okay,” he reassured himself, “what do I have to do?”

Marah smiled. “Okay, so I stole this from uncle’s ship,” she told Dustin, pulling him over to sit on the marsh bank as she drew what looked like a steel boomerang. “It can neutralize Beevil’s energy, but it has to be charged with a power source of equal strength.”

“Where would I find that?”

Marah shrugged. “I dunno. Don’t you guys have some kinda headquarters with really cool stuff?”

“We do,” Dustin admitted. “But Cam would probably kill me if I asked him to charge this.”

“So charge it yourself. I know you can do it!”

“I’ll try,” Dustin said, taking the boomerang. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Marah said cheerily. “Oh, you have no idea how nice it is to hear someone thank you for once!”

Dustin laughed. “Hunter’s kinda big on thank yous for some reason,” he told her.

“Yeah, what is _up_ with you and Crimson? What?” Marah said when Dustin looked at her. “Just because Kapri and Uncle Lothor and I try to kill you all the time doesn’t mean we don’t care what’s going on with you all. You’re, like, the only not-evil friends we have!”

“I have so many questions about that entire sentence.”

“Like?”

“Like, how is Lothor your Uncle?” Dustin asked. “I mean, I get how he’s Cam’s uncle…”

“Gene-splicing.”

“What?”

“Kapri and I are test-tube babies,” Marah clarified bluntly. “Lothor and Cam’s dad are both our Uncles.”

Dustin stared at Marah. “Like…Quartre in Gundam Wing?”

“Wow, _really_?” Marah asked skeptically. “Japanese animation, that’s what you got?”

“It’s not like we have a strong off-Earth educational system!” Dustin protested. “I mean, we just got ITunes! When’s the last time you listened to music on a CD or something?”

Marah sighed. “Yes, like Quartre,” she said, sounding resigned. “Although I’m way better looking. Obviously.”

“Ah—”

“Right?”

“Yes?”

Marah glared at Dustin. “Very confident there.”

“I mean, you’re definitely beautiful, and you’ve gotten in some great one-liners when we’re fighting?” Dustin hurriedly corrected himself. “I’m sure any dude would be lucky to date you.”

“Would you?”

 _What._ “I would,” Dustin said carefully, “if my, ah, affections didn’t, um—”

“Oh please, whose better looking than me? Hunter?” Marah asked. “Wait- wait you think he is!”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Please, I could read the panicked truth on your face,” Marah told him. “It’s not like you Earth Ninjas are good at lying.”

“When did you meet another Earth Ninja?”

“My uncle’s one. Didn’t Cam tell you?”

“No. No, Cam left out that detail.”

“Yeah, Lothor’s Earth.”

“Huh,” Dustin said wonderingly. “That…explains a few things.”

“But enough about him,” Marah said. “Tell me about you and Hunter!”

“There’s nothing to say!” Dustin hissed.

“That was a pretty strong reaction if there’s nothing there.”

Dustin flopped onto the banks. “Fine, we kissed once,” Dustin admitted. “But—”

“How was it? Was it good? Was it fast?” Marah said, settling down next to him. “I bet it was fast.”

“Zordon help me, but it was so _good_ , all soft and teasing,” Dustin whimpered. “I even felt a spark.”

“A spark?!” Marah giggled. “That’s _totally_ a sign that a Thunder Ranger likes you.”

“But that’s been it, and then I find out that Sha- I mean, _Red_ _Ranger_ also likes him—”

“Really?” Marah said, sounding disappointed.

“That bothers you?” Dustin said, pushing himself up to rest on his arms, his elbows digging into the damp bank.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, Hunter’s cute and all,” Marah said, drawing her knees in where she had settled onto the bank. “But Red Ranger is so _dreamy_.”

“What.”

Marah nodded. “Oh yeah, Kapri and I compared notes on this,” she told Dustin. “She thinks Hunter’s yummy. I mean, she has this thing for light-eyed blondes anyway, but she _really_ likes Hunter, especially when he does that smirky thing like he _knows_ you know who’s in charge, though personally I think it’s the hair—”

“No, it’s- it’s his eyes,” Dustin told her, deciding not to ask if Kapri’s thing for blondes extended to Tori for the sake of his sanity.

“Whatever,” Marah said. “Point is, he’s nice, but Red? I mean, I’ve only ever gotten to see him de-morphed a few times, but whew!”

“That’s—”

“I thought about asking Uncle if I could try to clone him, but he’d totally say no, so.”

“Yeah, I can confirm that Red would find that a little creepy.” Dustin said. “But is he really that, you know, hot?”

Marah stared at Dustin. “Can you honestly tell me you haven’t noticed how Dimitria-blessedly _thick_ that guy is built?” she asked, sounding unimpressed. “Like, you Rangers may have a lot of dark and handsome, but Red’s tan is _flawless_ and with that cropped, black hair and those _eyes_? Phew! I mean, I don’t know what you and Kapri see in Hunter’s,” Marah continued, “but I could stare into Red’s caramel orbs and freefall into them anytime. Seriously, you _never_ noticed?”

“I grew up around him,” Dustin whispered, closing his eyes to try and imagine Shane the way Marah had described him. “It’s a little hard to notice something like that when you’re used to seeing it every day.”

“But you noticed he’s into Hunter too.”

“Well he told me, but- look, there’s nothing _happening_ , I’d never do that to him,” Dustin stammered.

“To Crimson or Red?”

“…both?”

“So do it _with_ them!” Marah said. “You guys could share Hunter, I’m sure he could handle it.”

“You and Tori, I swear-” Dustin groaned.

“Wait, _Blue_ agrees with me?!” Marah shouted, causing a few birds to fly by. “Oops, I mean,” she continued, lowering her voice, “ _yay!”_

“Doesn’t it weird you out?”

“What, you three together?”

“No, I—”

“Cause let me tell you, on Triforia, there are three boys for each girl,” Marah went on. “So maybe Earth is a bit lame about this, but—”

“No, the, the talking about my lack of a love life,” Dustin said. “It’s not something you just talk with someone you know.”

Marah shrugged. “I grew up in space and really only had Kapri to talk with,” Marah said simply. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, on Earth, we really only share it with our friends.”

“Then I guess we’re friends,” Marah said.

Dustin blinked. “Okay,” he said at last.

“Really?” Marah whispered, scooting closer on the bank.

Dustin lied back down, trying not to notice how nice it felt when Marah carefully laid her head onto his chest. “Really.”

For a moment they just lay there, the soft sounds of water flowing through the Blue Bay Point marshlands humming in the densely humid air.

“I… I should go,” Marah said eventually. “They’ll wonder where I’ve gone.”

“Yeah, I should probably head to work,” Dustin said.

“You _work_? But you’re, like, my age.”

“Hey, gear like mine has to come from somewhere you know,” Dustin teased.

“Like my make-up,” Marah laughed as she stood up, Dustin standing shortly after her. “Though Uncle pays me for, well. You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dustin said. “Well, after a while, crocodile.”

Marah blinked. “I don’t know that one,” she admitted.

“Oh, ah, see, the first person says something like ‘see you later alligator’ or ‘smell ya later,’ and then you say, ‘after a while crocodile,’” Dustin explained. “It’s a thing me and Red started doing when we were little.”

“Gotcha,” Marah said. “Well, in that case, smell you later.”

 

 

_May 3, 2003, 12:42 PM_

“You lied to me,” Dustin found himself growling out. “I _trusted_ you!”

Dustin had done just as Marah said. He’d snuck in that morning to charge the boomerang, doing so after convincing several skeptical Rangers— including Cam, who had been _ticked_ at being woken up five in the morning from a console alarm Dustin hadn’t known existed— that it would be worth it before running it over to where Marah and the other Rangers had been fighting Beevil.

Marah— who’d shown up dressed like someone from that weird seventies show, complete with neon pink pants, a rose floral halter top, and a gold flapper hat— slapped it on Beevil to disable her, causing the alien to fall to the ground…only to get back up again when it turned out that Marah had just supercharged Beevil instead.

“Well duh,” Marah said as her clothes switched to the villainess uniform Dustin knew so well. “I wasn’t going to let anybody _else_ take you out, and how was I going to do that without your help?”

“Wait a second,” Dustin heard Tori say, coming up from behind to grab Dustin’s arm. “Dustin was the only one who trusted you, who saw _any_ good in you, and this is how you pay him back? That’s low, Marah, even for you.”

Dustin watched Marah carefully as Tori talked. _She’s…she’s sad,_ he thought, watching as her face softened.

“It’s not his fault he’s dumber than me!” Marah answered the Blue Ranger.

 _Wait a second, she’s faking it!_ Dustin realized as he listened to her laugh, so different from the one he’d heard only the afternoon before. _I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s_ totally _faking it. Wait, is she_ scared _of Beevil too!? If she is…Well, if we need to fake it..._

“No one makes a fool out of me!” Dustin said, summoning his Yellow Ranger Ninja armor with a gesture and charging at the giant red-armored bee alien standing next to Marah.

It wasn’t a very long battle. Dustin pushed the alien back against the pavement of what he knew was a community flower garden. He pushed Beevil past azaleas and roses into the center of the floor before finally brining his saber down and causing the earth to crack below her. And although his attention was mostly in his fighting, trusting his fellow Rangers to fight everyone else, a part of Dustin couldn’t help noticing that Marah stood outside of the battle.

When Beevil finally fell, Dustin turned, only to see Marah hitting the buttons on an alien device that every megazord battle they’d undergone had taught him would summon The Scroll of Empowerment to supersize the remains of Beevil to fight again.

“I thought we were friends,” he said to her.

Marah looked back at him, a soft smile on her face. “…smell you later,” she whispered to him as she vanished.

 _After a while, crocodile,_ Dustin thought to himself. _After your Uncle’s beaten and you don’t have to be afraid of any aliens ever again._

 _“_ Cyber Cam, megazord for one!” he called through the comm-line.

“You got it dude!”

 

 

_May 3, 2003, 3:43 PM_

“I’m glad to see you got your bike back,” Tori told Dustin from where she sat in the Storm Chargers Lounge. She had their math textbook open, the sight of it reminding Dustin they had a quiz in a couple days.

“Yeah,” Dustin replied to her as he walked his bike back over towards her, the motorcycle looking as good as new after a (very apologetic for a misprinted card) Dwayne Wheeler had shown up at Storm Chargers and showed Dustin the improvements he’d made to it. “So am I.”

“Hey, can I ask you question?”

Dustin froze. “I’m pretty sure the last time you did that our lives went bizarro-land fast,” he said carefully.

“No, it’s not that,” Tori said, closing the book. “Unless you and Hunter and Shane did something I don’t know about during that whole running from Lothor fandom thing?”

 _I wish_. “No,” Dustin said aloud. “You know everything.”

“Good. It’s just, I got a weird vibe from Marah,” Tori began.

Dustin nodded. “Like she was faking it the whole time.”

“Yeah, I- you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “She felt _way_ less fake when we were talking yesterday, but—”

“But not today,” Tori finished.

“Yeah. I think she might be afraid of Lothor? Or at least the other alien generals.”

“Oh…you know, we rag on you a lot, but…you’ve got good instincts...”

“You trusted her too once,” Dustin pointed out as Tori trailed off. “She told me about the Turtle Mace.”

Tori sighed. “That feels like a lifetime ago,” she admitted. “But I- I’m just trying to say you should be more careful.”

“Sensei always says to trust our instincts. What’s more careful than that?”

“…Right,” Tori said simply. “So, ah, what are you going to do now that your bike’s back?”

“Heading home,” Dustin told her. “Dad’s flying out tomorrow afternoon, so we figured we’d go bike riding before he flew out.”

“Jake the Explorer’s off on a new adventure, huh?” Tori teased.

“Yep. He’s heading off to somewhere in the Philippines. This guy named Andrew Hartfield wants his help trying to find some kinda crown,” Dustin explained.

“How very Indiana Jones of him.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Okay. Oh, you gonna be at Shane’s skate demo tomorrow afternoon?”

“Uh duh? It’s not like I’ve got some fancy not-a-date movie thing to make me late.”

“Get caught ninja streaking in public one time and they never let you forget it,” Tori complained.

“Didn’t you spend the whole _day_ doing that?” Dustin asked, only to have to duck when Tori flung a pillow at him.

“Go fix your bike, Dustin,” Tori grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”

 

 

_May 4, 2003, 12:34 PM_

_Gotta move, gotta move_ , Dustin thought as he cut across block, dodging a car that had clearly failed to recognize the red stop light with an ease that would’ve- and did- surprise all the bystanders on the sidewalk who didn’t know he was a trained Ninja.

There was already a crowd standing around the skate park, a crowd wearing the same mix of polos and graphic tees and halter tops that had seemed to be the standard uniform of the average skateboarding fan every time Dustin had come by the park. The crowd large enough that Dustin was sure that the demo organizers were satisfied, but small enough for him to see Tori standing on the sidelines in the same clothes she’d worn to school on Friday.

“Hey! Tori!” Dustin shouted as he ran onto the skate park. A quick glance showed him Shane skating away around one of the half-pipes, a look of sheer relaxation on his face as he maneuvered around the other boarders.

“Hey, you made it,” Tori replied as he came to a stop beside her. “How was Jack? Did you guys have a good ride?”

“He’s good, and yeah, our ride was awesome. Lots of hill to move around on.”

“Sweet.”

“Yeah. I introduced him to Blake and Hunter before he went,” Dustin admitted.

“What did they think of him?”

“They thought he was cool? I dunno, Blake was chill, but Hunter seemed a little freaked.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Tori said, looking at him knowingly.

“Yeah, well, Dad thought they were pretty sweet,” Dustin mumbled sheepishly, “so, Hunter doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

“It’s always good to get parental permission before you make a move.”

“Right?” Dustin said. “Wait, I mean- ah, I miss anything?”

Tori rolled her eyes. “You might say that,” she said, before leaning over to whisper into Dustin’s ear, “Cam may have fried Ninja Ops by accidentally swapping Sensei with Shane. Like, that’s _Sensei_ boarding out there.”

“ _What_.”

“Guess now we know why Cam felt so comfortable on a board.”

“And Sensei _was_ an air ninja, like Shane, wasn’t he?” Dustin said smugly, thinking back to the time he and Tori had been trapped by an alien in a perfume bottle.

“Yes, you were right,” Tori said wearily. “Guess Air ninjas have a natural affinity for skateboarding.”

“Oh-ho-ho- oh, no way!”

“ _So_ way, unfortunately.”

“No, I meant, _oh, no way_ ,” Dustin said, pointing out a crowd of Kelzacks emerging.

“Oh _great_ ,” Tori snarked.

“Dustin, Tori, allow me,” Shane said loudly, and Dustin watched as Shane— _er, Sensei,_ Dustin reminded himself— proceeded to lift himself up from the skateboard and head towards the Kelzacks, kicking them onto the ground as if the attack was a scene out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

“Huh,” Tori said as she began to move after him. “I guess there’re some things you never forget no matter what body you’re in.”

 _And wow am I glad for that,_ Dustin thought as he moved after her, arriving just in time to see a giant alien monster in the shape of a foot emerge.

“Do you want to do the honors?” Tori asked their Sensei.

“My pleasure,” he responded, and morphed, Dustin and Tori morphing right behind him, the two of them moving to fight the Kelzacks while Sensei Watanabe maneuvered Shane’s body to single-handedly defeat the foot monster.

“I must say, I’m enjoying being human sized again,” Dustin heard Shane’s voice say.

“I’ll bet,” Dustin replied, just as the alien and the monsters vanished from sight.

“That was amazing,” Tori said.

“Yeah, wicked moves dude!”

“Dustin, you will kindly not refer to me as _dude_ ,” Sensei Watanabe admonished.

“Dustin!”

“Oh, right, sorry Sensei,” Dustin said, bowing quickly just as their morphers beeped.

“Go for Sensei,” Sensei said, before adding “I always wanted to say that.”

“I think I’ve gotten the system fixed now,” Cam said. “Come back and I’ll switch you back Dad.”

“Aw, do we have to?” Dustin asked.

“Hey, I heard that!” Sensei’s voice said over the comm.

 

 

_May 4, 2003, 2:30 PM_

“Still wish you hadn’t swapped with my Dad?” Cam asked Dustin as they watched the Rangers fight.

“Nah,” Dustin told him. “For once I get to just watch a fight instead of be in it. It’s almost like a vacation! Plus,” he added hurriedly, “these sunflower seeds are _really_ good.”

“I’m glad you like them, though I wouldn’t get too used to it.”

“I know, I know, we’ll be switching back,” Dustin said.

“Looking forward to being human again?”

Dustin nodded his head. “I mean yeah, I’d like my _body_ back, but also, like, I really don’t want to hear what Sensei meant by ‘it is interesting to note the differences in physiology between the Yellow and Red Rangers’ while I’m stuck inside a furry body.”

“That could be weird I guess.”

“You’re telling me. I had that conversation with Marah.”

Cam looked at Dustin. “How’d that go?”

“Turns out she thinks Shane’s gorgeous,” Dustin said, noticing for a moment that Cam didn’t seem surprised by the statement before changing the topic. “How you been?””

“Why do people keep asking me that?” Cam muttered. “Really, I’m doing alright. I’m doing as well as a guy who’s almost got a computer network to swap his dad out of a teenager’s body into a guinea pig can be. Not to mention I’m probably going to find out what Dad thinks of the zords since he’s gotten to ride in one of them. Who knows, maybe he’ll let me hide the Thunder zords under the mountain or something now.”

“I ask because I- hold up, _under the mountain?”_

Cam sighed. “I’ve been trying to hide them in that abandoned quarry where you all first met,” he explained, “but they’ve started construction work there, and I’m a little worried some random bunch of bored high schoolers are going to find them.”

“Dude, in this town? Puh-leaze,” Dustin said, rolling his guinea pig eyes as best he could. “They’d, like, choose to dynamite the place first.”

“All the more reason to hide the zords here under the Academy grounds,” Cam said. “But I need Dad’s permission for that since he _is_ in charge of the entire Academy, and so far he’s being stubborn about it.”

“Ah,” Dustin said, reaching out to grab a few more sunflower seeds from the bag lying on the counter. “You know, I don’t think I realized how much stuff you need Sensei’s approval on.”

“He _is_ my entire family Dustin.”

“Here and now, anyway.”

“…so you still think Marah or Kapri will turn good?” Cam asked, sounding surprised. “After everything they’ve done.”

“Dude, you _swapped_ me and Sensei,” Dustin said. “The closest thing we have in common is your uncle’s element was the same as mine.”

“How do you know about—”

“Marah told me, which, bro, _so_ not okay to hide from me, but not the point right now. The point is if you can bodily cross elemental wires, I have no doubt that you can get at least _one_ of your cousins to come to the side of good.”

“…You sound like my dad.”

“Sensei’s a smart man. Personally,” Dustin said, “I’m thinking you’ll get Marah first. She actually seemed pretty open to being good.”

“Open enough to tell you her views on Ranger physiology.”

“When you put it like that it sounds stupid, but—”

“Dustin, I’m sure my cousin had fascinating views, but it’s not going to do us much good if you don’t actually retain your own physiology first.”

“Then Shane and the rest of them had better hurry up and finish this. I don’t want to deal with turning into Sensei.”

“Don’t worry,” Cam said, “there won’t be any after effects.”

“It’s more the fleas I’m worried about,” Dustin muttered.

 

 

_May 6, 2003, 9:00 PM_

Dustin stretched as he stood up from behind the counter.

The past couple days had gone fairly unremarkably, though he had to admit that could be because things were pretty unremarkable after you’ve body-swapped with a guinea pig. Mostly it had been cramming for school—Dustin had barely managed to sneak a B- on his math quiz, which would’ve been more awesome if he hadn’t felt like he’d bent the laws of time and space to get it all done on time— and spending time at Storm Chargers. The closer it got to the end of the year, the more people would stop by, making for longer shifts.

 

[Thankfully, his mom hadn’t minded. As a nurse Tara Brooks knew something about drawing the short end of the stick for shifts. And while she hadn’t liked him having a late shift on a school night so close to exams, she _had_ noticed Dustin’s time at Storm Chargers had helped her son mature into a more conscientious, _way_ better organized teenager than he had been when he was just another teenager doing after-school martial arts and moto on the weekends. So she was willing to overlook a late shift, at least this time.]

 

“You don’t mind locking up?” Dustin heard Kelly ask as she grabbed her coat from the rack by the door.

Dustin shrugged. “Nah,” he told Kelly. “I just have a few things to put away.”

“Alright,” she replied, the sound of the door jingling behind her as she left.

Dustin quietly went into the back of Storm Chargers. _At last, peace and quiet_ , he thought as he shuffled back a few toolboxes onto the shelves.

“We’ll show her,” he heard suddenly from the front. “She’ll _want_ to sell this place by the time we’re done.”

Dustin froze. _Henchmen_ , he thought. _But there’s nothing here that Lothor would want, so it can’t be him. Who’s then?_

Dustin finished shuffling the boxes, trying to remember the day as he moved. Just as he had put the last box into place he recalled a guy from some large, out-of-state, athletic gear chain store company that had been buying up stores around Blue Bay Harbor talking with Kelly. _She must’ve said no,_ Dustin realized. _And then he must’ve gone out …_

There was a crash.

 _No, not on my shift_ , Dustin thought, and without thinking he quickly morphed.

“I guess you guys didn’t see the closed sign,” he said, stepping out into the front and watching the look on the men’s faces at the sight of the Yellow Ranger. “Now go tell your boss this place isn’t for sale. After you put that stuff back.”

“Who the—!”

“It’s the Yellow Power Ranger!”

“Ah- ah yeah, okay,” one of the men that Dustin thought was the leader said, and soon the group was hurrying to put things back.

“Dustin,” Dustin heard a familiar voice call, “I forgot my… _wow,_ a Power Ranger.”

Dustin turned to look at his employer, and for the first time felt actively thankful that the visor wasn’t see-through. “Yes Ma’am, and you won’t have any problems with these guys anymore. Now move it!” he finished, hurrying the men out before running out behind them, sure that he was leaving Kelly feeling a little dazed but not wanting to risk her placing him as one of her teenage employees.

 _Thank Zordon for streaking,_ Dustin thought as he slowed down, trying to walk casually back into Storm Chargers through the backdoor. “Hey Kelly,” he said, seeing her still standing in the front of the store.

“Did you see that?” she asked.

“What?”

“The- the Yellow Power!” Kelly said excitedly. “He was right here!”

Dustin looked around. “I thought the Rangers left, like, _way_ more property damage?”

“Well it was just him,” Kelly corrected, “so maybe Yellow’s less destructive?”

 _I definitely_ try _to be_ , Dustin thought to himself. _“_ What did he want?”

Kelly looked at him. “How do you know he’s a he?”

“I-ah- the newspapers always call Yellow him?” Dustin said lamely.

Kelly rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she said, walking over to grab her keys. “But no, Yellow didn’t want anything. Just marched a bunch of burglars out and left. I didn’t even get to say thank you.”

“Probably thinks it’s all in a day’s work- err, night’s work.”

“Dustin?”

“Yeah?”

“Just close the shop.”

 

 

_May 7, 2003 2:00 PM_

“You’re lucky you were there to help Kelly,” Shane said.

Dustin hadn’t seen the Red Ranger until he had arrived at Ninja Ops to see him and Tori sparring, and it hadn’t taken long for the adventure to come out.

“Yeah,” Dustin told him. “Hopefully those guys won’t come back.”

“Your actions were noble, but using your Ranger powers in everyday circumstances can have powerful consequences,” Sensei Watanabe said from where he sat on the console next to Cam, who was glaring at the screen.

“But Sensei, we fight Lothor’s goons all the time!” Dustin protested. “What’s the big deal helping out a friend?”

“The big deal is this,” a voice Dustin recognized as Blake’s said from the entryway.

“Yeah, check this out,” Hunter added, following his brother into Ninja Ops with a newspaper in his hand. “Looks like we have a celebrity in the group.”

“Blue Bay Seeing Yellow,” Tori read. “While the city has grown used to seeing the power rangers, this is the first time one has appeared on his own. Could this be a sign of things to come: is Yellow going solo?”

“That’s- why would I ever go _solo_?” Dustin asked as the full sense of what Tori read hit him.

“Yeah, especially with writing _this_ poor,” Tori replied. “What?” she added when she saw how Blake stared at her. “My dad’s a _reporter_. I know how to recognize bad writing.”

“You’d go solo for _good_ writing?” Blake asked.

Tori rolled her eyes. “Nobody could possibly write _that_ good, trust me.”

“Apparently, the Golden Girls disagree with you,” Cam called from the computer.

“Bea Arthur reads Blue Bay’s newspaper?” Hunter asked confusedly.

“No, though I now have a lot of questions about your television habits,” Cam replied to the Crimson Ranger. “That’s the name Dustin’s fangirls chose.”

“I have fans?” Dustin asked. “Wait, _we_ have fans?!”

“Oh there’s a lot of Ranger fan sites,” Cam told him.

“Well yeah,” Dustin replied. “ _Time Force_ alone made that happen.”

“How does Dustin know that?” Blake asked Shane.

“He moderates a Power Rangers fan forum,” Shane told the Navy Ranger.

“That’s…that’s getting in _deep_ bro.”

“Be glad you missed his Lost Galaxy and Lightspeed Rescue days,” Tori told him.

“ _Listen_ ,” Dustin said seriously. “Mike and Ryan were _robbed_ of the well-developed character arcs they deserved so we could have a few pointless shirt-tearing fan shots of the Reds, and I will go to the _mats_ on that.”

“On behalf of my fellow Red Rangers,” Shane said, “I apologize for having photogenic abs, and promise never to use them to become more famous than you.”

“Terrifying as _both_ those images are,” Cam continued, “the sites I’ve been keeping tabs on say Dustin’s got 15,000 fan letters.”

“And they’re all for him?” Shane asked.

“ _Dude_ ,” Dustin said. “Don’t sound so shocked.”

“It- wait, no, no,” Cam said suddenly as he began to type.

“Cam?” Tori asked.

“No, it’s- it’s going to,” Cam began.

All of a sudden the console exploded in a shower of sparks.

“Crash,” Cam finished lamely, waving away the smoke that was beginning to come from the keyboard.

“Dude, you’re fangirls must _seriously_ like you,” Hunter said, his eyes wide.

“Yeah, well, just do me favor,” Cam said. “Next time any of you decide to become famous, tell your fans to send mail the old fashion way.”

“I mean, okay?” Dustin said into the silence that followed. “There can’t actually be that many of them though, yeah?”

 

 

_May 8, 2003, 1:00 PM_

“I _said_ I was sorry!” Dustin shouted to Shane as he hopped off the half pipe. “What was I supposed to do, let that tongue thing was going around slobbering on people?!”

“You should’ve asked for help,” Shane said angrily. “You were really lucky he didn’t grab you too.”

Dustin groaned. He had come to watch Shane do the skate demo— as he always had since Shane had started skateboarding— but was forced to morph and fight right as Shane got onto the half-pipe. Before he knew it there was a crowd, and a reporter, and Shane had been left forgotten on the pipe. Which hadn’t been ideal, but—

“I was all over that guy!” Dustin insisted.

“Take it from someone who’s been there, there’s no I in team.”

Dustin raked his fingers through his hair as he remembered how things were months ago at the start of their Rangering, how hard it had been to convince Shane to take him and Tori seriously. _This is so bogus,_ he reflected, frustrated.

“Well maybe there should be?” Dustin heard himself ask.

Shane stared at him. “What did you say?” he asked, sounding shocked.

“For the first time in my life, I’m not just the goofy one,” Dustin explained to Shane. ‘I’m getting respect. I can’t- I’m _not_ just about to walk _away_ from that. Especially when all I did was what I was supposed to do: fight an evil alien space ninja so that my _best friend_ could be the _righteous_ skateboarder I know he is in peace.”

Shane’s face softened. “And I would never ask you to,” he said, “but you can’t let what other people say or think get in the way of you doing what you think is right.”

 _You can’t let them get to you,_ Dustin thought, remembering how he had said that to Marah himself a few days ago. _But what if I want them to? What if I_ want _them to get to me, just a little, like I’m one of them and not just me, alone?_

“Just, promise me you want disappear on me,” Shane said after a moment. “I don’t want you fighting alone like that.”

“I won’t,” Dustin told him. “But I gotta bounce. I…may have wound up getting a phone interview with a reporter who saw the fight?”

“ _Seriously_?!”

“I—”

“Okay, _next_ time we fight evil space aliens, do it where we can _all_ get cameras on us,” Shane said.

Dustin snorted. “I’ll try my best to stall the alien until the press gets there,” he promised

 

_May 8, 2003, 3:14 PM_

_Man, I should know better than to promise things about aliens,_ Dustin thought as he shuffled on his feet, looking at the alien tongue monster standing across from outside the warehouse.

“So, can we wait a minute?” he finally asked it aloud. “I think the press is on the way, and I kinda promised Red I’d wait until we’re all here first.”

“Sure,” the alien jeered. “You getting captured will make a great headline!”

“Somehow I doubt you’re going to get a good headline when nobody’ll know your name.”

“Mind if we crash your party?” Dustin heard Tori say suddenly as she and Shane ran into the industrial park where Dustin had managed to streak to when Cam showed them he had returned on the Ninja Ops screen.

“Don’t answer that, ‘cause we already did!” Shane added, gesturing to morph.

“Excellent,” the alien cheered, letting his tongue fly just in time to grab Tori right after she’d finished morphing.

“Hey!” Dustin said, trying to move forward.

“No, let me,” Shane said.

“What?” Dustin asked.

“You finished him off last time. Let me take care of him.”

“But—”

“Dustin, listen—”

“No!” Dustin shouted. “I’m _through_ listening! I’ve gotta help her, this whole thing is my fault.”

“You- guys- are being- ridiculous!” Tori shouted as she tried to hack at the alien’s tongue.

Shane sighed. “…if you really don’t want my help, then you’ll need all the fire power you can get,” he said, handing over his blaster.

Dustin growled. “Didn’t you hear me yesterday?” he asked, pushing the blaster down. “I don’t want to go it _alone_. I _want_ us to do it _together_!”

“How touching, two old friends remembering they like each other,” the alien laughed.

Shane huffed. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “And I got an idea. Hop on.”

“Wha- really?” Shane asked, watching as Dustin lied down on the dust. “Dude—”

“Let’s _do_ this bro.”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

Shane hopped onto Dustin. “Air Ninja slash,” Shane shouted as Dustin summoned his element, using it to throw himself forward.

“Earth ninja Slash!”

Beams of Red and Yellow light went forward, ripping from the air and the ground. Beams that, when they struck the alien, spliced his tongue apart as the force of the energy shattered it into sparks.

“Thanks guys!” Tori said as she dropped to the ground. “Now let’s finish this.”

“We cool?” Shane asked quietly, opening his visor.

“Yeah, we cool,” Dustin said, replied, opening his. “And I _am_ sorry about, you know—”

“I know,” Shane said.

Suddenly, Dustin heard a click.

“Visors down guys!” Tori hissed into the comms. “We’re on camera.”

 

 

_May 9, 2003 10:45 AM_

“Hey check it out,” Shane shouted as he came into Ninja Ops. “We made front cover baby!”

Dustin and Tori got up from where they had been sitting with the Bradley brothers on the floor by the Ninja Ops console, Blake telling them both about how he and Hunter had gone to visit the grandmother they had found out had lived nearby, and wondered into a Kelzacks trap in the process.

“Seriously?” Tori asked Shane.

“Hey, the press did show!” Dustin said.

“Fortunately, they seem to have missed the part where you _opened your visors,_ ” Sensei Watanabe pointed out wearily.

“Yeah, thanks for catching that Tor,” Shane said.

“Anytime,” she replied.

“Now that all three of you are famous, can we please get back to life as normal?” Cam asked.

“Aw, dude, just give us like five more seconds?” Dustin pleaded.

“I understand the need to take your time to celebrate your accomplishments, but Cameron is correct,” Sensei Watanabe said. “It is now time to remember who you _are_. And as your sensei, I suggest that we begin with a very simple exercise.”

“Oh please not another brick-breaking thing,” Hunter said.

“No, it is not another brick thing,” the Sensei replied. “It’s dishes.”

“What?” Tori asked.

“Dad and I have been cleaning everything up around here from your constant sparring sessions and streaking in, but we’re drawing the line at dirty dishes,” Cam told the teenagers. “So unless you want to start putting all your gear into the laundry—”

“To the kitchen,” Blake said hurriedly.

“Hey uh Shane?” Dustin asked as the group began to walk towards the back of Ninja Ops.

“Yeah?”

“When the dish thing is finished, can we talk?”

Shane glanced at Dustin. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah it is, I just- there’s something that’s been on my mind, like, all _week_ , and I kinda want to ask you about it.”

Shane shrugged. “Cool.”


	18. Chapter XIII: Leaf Subsides to Leaf

_“All the Bad Boys are standing in the shadows.”_

  * Tom Petty



 

 

_May 9, 2003, 4:01 PM_

“How did we let those many dishes pile up?” Shane asked Dustin as the pair stumbled towards the entrance of Ninja Ops.

The kitchen sink had been full with towering piles of dishes, cups, and silverware. Just glancing at the porcelain pillars had made Shane twitchy, but years of Academy training had kicked in and the Rangers quickly formed an assembly line to tackle the pile, with Tori and Dustin washing each one before handing it to Shane and Hunter to dry, who in turn handed the piece to Blake to shelve away.

Still, with the exception of a small break for lunch, it had taken close to five hours for the Rangers to finish the backlog.

“I have no idea,” Dustin was saying, “but dude I have _never_ felt more respect for the dish pit crew at school than I do right now.”

“Right?” Shane chuckled as he stepped onto the staircase in the stone hallway leading out of Ninja Ops. “So, ah, you wanted to talk?”

Dustin sighed. “Ah yeah,” he said, leaning against the hallway’s wall. “It’s about the Hunter thing.”

Shane blinked. “Is there a thing?” Shane asked him slowly.

“No- no there’s not, but—”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Do you remember a couple weeks back when Tori flipped out about it?” Dustin asked him.

“I remember,” Shane said wincing. “That was the same day I told Tori about me.”

“Well, she kinda asked me something later, and it’s been on my end for a couple weeks now.”

“Must’ve been pretty big for you to be thinking about it all this time.”

“Three rounds of space aliens and one round of paparazzi didn’t help,” Dustin admitted.

“I bet,” Shane said patiently.

Dustin sighed. “She asked me if I’d share Hunter with you,” he said flatly.

“…what.”

“Look,” Dustin whispered, glancing around as if he expected the Crimson Ranger to appear any second, “she was telling me how it made sense to her that Hunter would freeze up when it came to, you know, _picking_ , and I said that at this rate I’d rather he chose us both, and she was all ‘would you?’”

“And?” Shane asked.

“And I said I hadn’t thought about it, but probably—”

“ _Dude_ , that is—”

“But I have _now_ , you know?” Dustin said. “Like, I even spoke with Marah about it.”

“ _Marah?!_ ” Shane hissed. “You asked an evil space alien for help with your _love life_?!”

“ _Bro_ , she _offered_ okay?”

“Dustin.”

“Plus she’s Cam cousin, so it’s not like she’s dumb.”

“Lothor’s his uncle, doesn’t mean he’s smart.”

“Hey, he did manage to kidnap two ninja academies- which, bro, did you know Lothor was an Earth ninja?” Dustin said suddenly. “I have _no idea_ what it says about me that we share the same track.”

“It means nothing,” Shane replied. “You’re two different people.”

“I dunno…”

“Have you felt like turning evil lately?”

“No, but given how I felt about Marah and feel about Hunter, I’m clearly drawn to bad people.”

“Dustin,” Shane said. “Am _I_ bad person?”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Dude,” he said, sounding impatient to Shane, “You’re a skateboarding ninja Power Ranger standing in an underground bunker talking with a motorcycling teammate about being in a threesome relationship with a smoking hot, sparky blond with a thing for graphic tees and tight jeans. In what world does that sound like a _good_ _boy_ to you?”

“That- _okay_ , what did Marah say?” Shane grumbled, hoping that Dustin would get back on track.

“She thought it’d be cool. said other planets were way more open about that sort of thing.”

“Of course she did.”

“She, ah, also mentioned she thought you were hot,” Dustin added, sheepishly running a hand through his hair. “Like clone-worthy hot, which I’m pretty sure is a compliment?”

“Dustin,” Shane said slowly. “I know Tori’s more into the common-sense thing, but…just how much _did_ you two talk? Like, should Cam check for, you know—”

“No! No, we just spoke for, like, five minutes, she just hasn’t- but the _point_ is, I’ve been thinking about it,” Dustin said, “and I want to do it.”

“You- you want to _share Hunter_? With _me?_ ”

Dustin nodded. “You two are my bros, and we spend so much time around each other anyway.”

“That sounds more like desperation Dustin.”

“It’s not desperation, I just- I _really_ like you two, and when I try to imagine being with the two of you, together, it just…feels right,” Dustin said. “It could be a win-win kinda thing, ya know?”

Shane huffed. “Man, I have washed _way_ too many dishes to figure this out right now.”

“Oh, bro, you- you don’t have to give me an answer right now, I mean, decisions after a marathon dishwashing session isn’t the best time anyway,” Dustin said hurriedly. “But you gotta know, if you’re up for it, you kinda have to tell Hunter you’re…you know. Interested. So he’d think about it too.”

“Hey I think Shane and Dustin’s waiting for us,” Shane heard Tori call from the corner back near where the kitchen was.

Shane froze where he stood.

“I won’t out you or anything,” Dustin whispered quickly as the pair watched their friends head towards them, “but it’s up to you. ‘Cause it looks like it’s gonna be up to _us_ to make the next move, and I’m not doing anything you’re not okay with.”

 

 

_May 17, 2003, 1:15 PM_

“Ten miles,” Shane heard Blake groan out as he carefully allowed himself to fall onto the Ninja Ops floor. “Ten _miles_. Two fight simulations, and an obstacle course.”

“Don’t forget the two hours of deep meditation,” Hunter muttered, his voice muffled by what Shane thought was Hunter’s wrist guard, still hanging in his mouth from where Hunter had bit down to hold it after it had frayed off his wrist on mile eight.

“Oh it wasn’t that bad guys,” Dustin panted out. “The ending of Dawson’s Creek was worse than that.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tori grumbled, shutting her eyes tiredly as she leaned against the wall. “You got to _move_ for your breathing meditation. And don’t mention the Creek around Shane, it’s too soon.”

“I can’t help my rev trigger Tor, you know that. Hey Shane, you okay?” Dustin asked suddenly. “You look tired. It wasn’t the Creek thing was it?”

Shane looked up from where he had chosen to bend over and rest, his eyes landing on Dustin long enough to notice that the Yellow Ranger had partially opened his uniform jacket to reveal the black under-armor layered below it. “No the Creek’s- I’m good,” Shane panted. “Just exhausted.”

“Not from the run?” Hunter asked. “I know you can go farther than that.”

“Nah, I’m just not getting a lot of sleep these days,” Shane said. “Keep having this weird dream.”

“You should pay attention to that,” Tori told him, her eyes still shut. “Sensei always says your dreams can tell you a lot about yourself.”

“Where is Dad anyway?” Cam interrupted.

“Don’t know,” Blake groaned from the floor. “Don’t care.”

“Bro—”

“Hunter,” Blake said to his brother. “A _ten-mile run_ in _California_ _heat_. I _physically._ _do. not. care_.”

“Look!” Tori interrupted. Shane noticed she had opened her eyes, and was gesturing tiredly towards where Sensei’s cart stood. “He left us a note.”

“What’s it say Tor?” Shane asked, watching as Tori slowly walked over to the cart and picked up a small piece of parchment.”

“Rangers,” she read. “I have gone on a meditation retreat to recharge my inner ninja. In my absence, relax and enjoy a day off.”

“YES!” Dustin cheered, Blake and Hunter joining in soon after.

“No way,” Shane said disbelievingly. “Is that _really_ what it says?”

“Yeah.” Tori said softly.

“What’s the matter?” Blake said, raising his head up. “Don’t tell me you can’t handle a day of.”

“No, a day off would be great, especially tomorrow,” Tori said. “I just thought Sensei would be around is all.”

“Bro, what are we missing?” Hunter asked Dustin.

Shane smiled. “Man, are we stupid?” he asked, walking over to Tori.

“Wait,” Dustin said, sounding like he was remembering something of importance. “ _Wait_ , is it—”

“Tomorrow’s Tori’s Birthday!’ Shane sung out, watching as the Blue Ranger blushed. “You know what that means!”

“Beach Party!” Dustin shouted. “Wait, we _are_ doing a beach party, right Tor?”

“Sounds good to me,” Tori replied.

“Alright,” Hunter said, offering Shane a high-five, which Shane returned quickly. “Then we meet at the beach first thing in the morning.”

“Just make sure you get plenty of sleep,” Tori said, glancing at Shane. “You never know what might happen.”

“Like what?”

Tori shrugged. “Maybe I’ll get drenched in popcorn syrup.”

“Nah,” Blake said. “Pretty sure you can only get attacked by an alien pig once.”

 

 

_May 18, 2003, 1:01 AM_

_Kendrix,_ Shane thought as he shot awake, feeling more than seeing the tacky traces left by the beads of sweet rolling off his shirtless body onto the sheets.

“Not again,” he gasped aloud.

For the third night in row Shane had dreamed the same dream. He was a kid again, dressed in his favorite jersey, taking a walk through some woods that Shane guessed must’ve been located near Blue Bay Harbor because they seemed vaguely familiar. As he walked Shane would come across a huge spider web that had been spun in the shadows between two of the trees, and in the center of the web would be a tiny, shining ball of light that was struggling to escape. The ball would ask him for his help, and Shane would snap the web to set it free, just as a giant black orb of…of _something_ shot at him.

Shane would duck, and then bolt awake in his bed, once again the teenaged Red Ranger who’d gone to bed in his boxers and little else since his room heated up too well to wear much more comfortably to bed.

Groaning, Shane rubbed at his eyes. _Think of something else,_ he thought, trying to calm down.

With practiced habit Shane glanced around his room for something to distract himself with. There wasn’t much: messy clothes in a jumbled pile in the corner of his room, red bedroom curtains drooping alongside his closed window. His red comforter— which had been blue, but which Shane had come home one day to see had changed colors somehow, just conveniently around the time he had become the Red Ranger— was crumpled along with its matching yellow-and-crimson bedsheets around his waist, leaving the pale white bedsheet his mom had wrapped around his mattress open to the air.

_Pretty much what every guy’s got_ , Shane thought absently to himself as he found himself eventually staring at the one thing in his room he knew was unique: his bed’s headboard.

The bed’s original headboard had been a simple, slate-shaped thing, made of two spiral posts with a pale wood backing that stretched across them, but it had the annoying habit of creaking against the wall of Shane’s room every time he’d lay his head down. So after much debate (and much convincing of parental unites) Shane had unscrewed the headboard, leaving his bed backless against the wall. Shane had then carefully mounted the first set of skateboards he’d ever gotten onto the wall where the headboard had been, hammering in his first ever skateboard (a red one) at the top, before working down to the blue board Tori had given him for his birthday that year, which Shane hadn’t wanted to ruin by actually using it.

Younger Shane had loved it, thinking that it gave his wall _meaning_. Younger Dustin had loved it too, telling Shane enthusiastically how righteous it would be to sleep underneath a skateboard rainbow _._

_Probably would still love sleeping under it with me and Hunter,_ Shane thought, only to feel his body tensing up at the thought.

That proposal was one that Shane was still trying to figure out- _not_ with the help of an alien space ninja, unfortunately or not.

Months of being around, fighting, and sparring with Hunter had proven to Shane that his initial instinct was right. Hunter _was_ a force of nature, intense in looking after the ones he loved, flaming in his anger, with a teasing smirk that kinda begged you to try taking Hunter down if he could handle it and was incredibly distracting when you actually did manage to get him on the ground. _Years_ of growing up with Dustin meant Shane knew deep in his bones that Dustin was always going to be in his life, joking and poking fun and quietly getting Shane to break every skateboarder bro code there was to talk about his feelings without being obvious or judgmental about it.

And Shane was just self-aware enough to know that he felt a certain pleasure at how the image of the three of them together, hanging out at demos and races and sparring on Academy grounds, played out in his head when he tried to picture it. A certain pleasure that he had found in the last nine days could be _incredibly_ strong when Shane had tried to picture some…less innocent, but no less athletic, activities.

The problem was Shane didn’t know _anyone_ who had ever even _tried_ to date two people at once, and somehow, he didn’t think the guys at the skate park would react to him dating two bikers at once with a “Good on ya mate.”

Sighing, Shane found himself remembering what Tori had said about dreams revealing who a person was as he stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to return. Shane didn’t have much experience with dream revelations- he didn’t really remember his dreams anyway- but the appearance of _this_ specific dream and Dustin’s proposal were timed pretty close together. _If my sex life is the ball of light_ , Shane mused to himself, looking at the Ranger morpher still on his wrist from where he’d left it after practice, _and the spider web is the mess of it, then the Dark orb would be…nah, that’s too whack even for me._

_I hope._

 

 

_May 18, 2003, 10:01 A.M._

                Shane yawned as he shuffled hurriedly across the sand dunes. “Why did the bakery have to open at nine thirty?” he grumbled. “It couldn’t have opened at nine like every other store in town?”

                The baker hadn’t been too moving fast either, and the combined delay made Shane very happy to have established Tori’s birthday cake order as a regular thing back in fourth grade. By the time the cake had been boxed Shane had been debating if it was worth testing its integrity with ninja streaking, only to decide once he’d paid that he could make it to the beach if he just ran fast enough.

_Almost there,_ he thought as Tori’s white van came into view.

“Has anyone seen Shane?” he could hear Tori asking.

“We can’t leave without him, he’s bringing the cake!”

“Guys!” Shane shouted as he finally reached the parking lot. “Hey Tori! Happy Birthday!”

Tori smiled at him, as Dustin reached over and took the cake from him before moving to put it with the rest of the group’s stuff. The moment was long enough for Shane to notice everyone else standing around. Cam, standing by the surfboards, his mom’s amulet hanging on a surfer cord around his neck as he and the Bradleys sorted out gear. Blake, in a wetsuit and camo, who was trying to look casual as he snuck glances at Tori. Hunter- Hunter was wearing tight board shorts, a red tee and what Shane thought was an inflated swan on his head, and somehow managed to make it all look good.

Tori, he realized, was the only one dressed in pure street clothes like he was.

“That…doesn’t look like beach wear,” Hunter said at last when he looked at Shane, sounding almost disappointed to find him wearing a grey hoodie over his red shorts.

“Don’t tell me you’re _bailing,_ ” Tori said.

“Yeah, I- look, I had the same dream again,” Shane explained regretfully. “I think it’s trying to tell me something.”

“Like how to ruin your friend’s _birthday_?”

“What, _no_! I don’t _want_ to- I just, I have this weird sense that something isn’t right.”

“Shane, I’m the first person to say duty before pleasure,” Cam said as he walked up to them, “but I left CyberCam online at Ninja Ops. If anything weird shows up he’ll let us know.”

“I’ll catch up, I promise,” Shane said, looking at Tori.

Tori sighed. “Alright,” she said, giving him a brief hug, “you better.”

“I will,” Shane whispered.

Letting go of Tori Shane turned around and began to streak away, running towards the woods outside of Blue Bay Harbor.

 

***

_Yeah there’re a lot of trees here_ , Shane thought to himself as he began to look around. _Trees…and more trees_ …“What was I thinking?” he muttered aloud.

As if in answer Shane felt a slight breeze pass by- a breeze that he saw came from a small ball of light floating in front of him.

It was only his instincts, now well-honed from months of battle with Lothor, that caused Shane to spin and kick out, actually managing to hit the dark orb his dreams had been suggesting would be there.

_What the—what_ is _that?_ Shane thought curiously as he saw the orb crash and explode, revealing what appeared to be an alien with a shark head, dressed in what looked to Shane like a cross between samurai armor (complete with giant sword) and the silver suit from the Zenon the Zequel film a younger Tori had made Shane and Dustin watch.

“Now there’s a face only a mother could love,” Shane heard himself say.

“I could say the same thing about you,” the alien replied. “Now step aside.”

“Lothor’s goons don’t scare me.”

“Hand me the Karmin.”

Shane frowned. “The _what?”_

“Foolish Earthling,” the alien sneered. “Have it your way.”

The alien raised his sword and was about to strike Shane when Shane felt a piercing heat go through him, the intensity of it so strong Shane had to close his eyes. When he opened them again the alien had vanished from sight— along with the forest, or at least the part of it he had been standing in.

“What’s going on?” Shane asked.

“Hey you okay?

Shane turned to see who the speaker was, and surprised to see a woman standing there in blue jeans and a green tank top. _A Maori woman too,_ he thought absently as he took in the style of her armbands and the cowrie shell wristband on her hands. “I thought I was out here alone.”

The woman shrugged, the gesture making her dark hair bounce. “Guess not.”

“We need to get you home,” Shane said, thinking about how high the odds were that the alien would attack again. “It’s not safe out here.”

“How do you know I even live this way?”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Alright,” he said, “how maybe you can help me out?”

The woman smiled, and pointed straight up.

“Are you some alien life form or something? Is that what you’re telling me? Hey,” he said as the girl broke out laughing again. “You’re serious!”

“You _asked_.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Skyla. Call me Skyla.”

“Skyla,” Shane said, trying out the name. “I like the sound of that.”

“Thanks,” she replied, before beginning to walk away.

“Hey, wait up!” Shane shouted as he began to hurry after her, ignoring the way the trees seemed to split along the path in favor of watching where the woman was going. “Would you slow down?

“Don’t be such a whiner!”

“Whiner? Is _that_ what you just called me? Hey wait,” he said glancing around, “I-I know this part of the forest. This was in my dream! How did you- okay, this is _really_ starting to trip me out.”

“Is it?” Skyla said, her stride not breaking for a moment. “You seemed okay when you kicked Vexacus.”

“You know that guy?” Shane asked.

“Unfortunately.”

“Skyla, what am I doing here?”

Skyla sighed. “Let’s just say I owe you one, and this is where I pay you back.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No you don’t,” Shane insisted as he stepped over a large rock. “Trust me. I’d remember if I helped you out before.”

“We did meet before. When you were little,” Skyla said. “I was stuck in a spider-web.”

Shane thought about his dream. “Wait,” he said slowly. “That ball of light? That was _you_?”

Skyla nodded. “Yes,” she said, stepping over a stray log in the path. “I was little, and you saved me from that fish-headed freak.”

“What does that guy- Vexacus?- want with you anyhow?”

“What he wants with me is what he’s always wanted. What I came here to give you.”

“What?” Shane asked.

Skyla stopped walking, and turned around to look at Shane’s face.

“Power,” she said.

“Yes, power,” a voice broke in, a voice Shane quickly recognized as belonging to Vexacus as he stepped into the clearing behind Skyla. “And at last I’ll have it!”

“Skyla!” Shane shouted as Vexacus grabbed her.

“The power’s not meant for you!” Skyla shouted as she struggled.

“But it will be mine, and once I have it I’ll rule the universe!”

“Not if I stop you,” Shane said.

The alien looked at Shane. “If you want her, come and claim her,” he sneered before vanishing.

Shane looked around the forest. “Did he just- no, focus,” Shane said aloud to himself. “Come on, where could he have taken her?”

Shane thought, racking his brain. “That must be it!” he shouted suddenly, and streaking Shane ran back to the clearing where he had kicked Vexacus, managing to arrive just in time to see him standing there.

“The human boy’s not around!” Vexacus was saying to a still struggling Skyla.

“Look again!” Shane shouted.

The alien whipped around. “Don’t mess with things you don’t understand,” he growled.

“What’s to understand? Skyla good, Vexacus not good,” Shane replied, hurrying to strike at Vexacus, the gesturing forcing the alien to release Skyla, who promptly collapsed to the ground.

“Skyla!” Shane shouted as he moved, dodging a blow to stand between Skyla and Vexacus.

“It is her time,” Vexacus replied, slashing at Shane. “Her power will soon be mine. Step aside!”

“If you’re not morphing because you don’t want me to see,” Shane hurried Skyla gasp out, the ground muffling the sound, “you’re a little late.”

“How do you know!?” Shane asked her.

“I know- everything- about you,” she stammered.

“ _That’s_ not creepy.”

“Please- hurry!”

“I, fine,” Shane said, nodding to her as he morphed into the Red Ranger and drew his blade, its edge flashing gold.

Vexacus paused. “This isn’t over Karminian,” he growled before vanishing.

_Huh, so that was anti-climactic._ “Skyla,” Shane said aloud, de-morphing as he ran towards her. “You alright?”

“Hurry,” She whispered, leaning onto Shane as if to use him like a crutch. “Take me back to where we first met. I don’t have much time.”

“Okay,” Shane said. “Okay, let’s go.”

They had been walking across the clearing and forest floors— small sticks and leaves crackling as they went— for what felt to Shane like an eternity, but was doubtlessly only a few minutes, when Shane finally asked Skyla the question that had been on his mind the moment they’d begun to cross the forest on foot again. “What did he mean when he said you don’t have much time?”

“Karminians pass all the time,” Skyla whispered to him.

“Pass? Like-like you’re _dying_?” Shane asked, horrified.

“We don’t die,” Skyla said. “We just…change forms, from one life form to the next.”

“That’s…heavy.”

Shyla shrugged. “I guess for you maybe,” she told Shane, “but we’re taught to pass from a young age.”

“I just can’t believe that out of the whole universe, you- you chose to be here, with me.”

“I didn’t.

Shane glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve known, ever since you were little and saved me from Vexacus, that you were my destiny,” she said. “That I would be yours.”

“Skyla, I- I wish—”

“That things were different?” she teased.

“Well, yeah,” Shane muttered. “You know everything about me, and I don’t know anything about _you_. Like, I don’t even know your favorite color—”

“Gold and Crimson.”

Shane blinked. “Yeah?”

Skyla nodded. “I’ve always liked light and fire,” she told him. “Liked the way they flicker and flare, lighting up the sky. It’s felt soothing.”

“Oh.”

Skyla giggled, the soft sound shortly turning into a cough. “I also really, really like motorcycles,” she told him once she caught her breath. “They sound like spaceships.”

Shane flushed. “Would you pick them over skateboards?” he teased.

“I’ll never have the choice, but I wouldn’t hate you for not doing that.”

“Thanks,” Shane said dryly. “Any other sage words of insight before you leave?”

“Never,” she told him.

“Huh?”

“I’m never leaving,” Skyla said. ”I’ll _always_ be there for you Shane.”

“Thanks,” Shane said softly, seeing the clearing where they had first met so many years ago starting to come into view. “Hey, uh, when you said you knew everything about me, did you mean, you know, everything?”

“You’re asking me about Dustin and Hunter now?” she murmured, leaning into his neck.

“I’d ask you later, but since you’re digi-evolving, I’m not going to be able to,” Shane muttered.

Skyla hummed, the sound almost keening. “I don’t know, you might,” she said. “At least, some part of me will always be linked with you by the power I’m going to pass on to you, and I know that part of me will be up for talking with you, even if it’s just about boy troubles.”

”Talking to a ghost you wouldn’t be the same.”

“I guess,” she said, pausing to carefully put her foot on a large branch that had fallen in their way. “To me,” she said as she stepped over it, “the best choice is the one you’ll make.”

“How very Sensei Watanabe of you,” Shane huffed.

“But it’s true,” she said. “I can tell that you love Dustin and Hunter, and I know how you’ve dreamt of loving them.”

“Oh _Kendrix,_ I am so _sorry_ —”

“No, please, I’m passing not blind,” Skyla teased. “I can enjoy you enjoying eye candy.”

“ _Wow_.”

“But I think you could love them,” she continued. “Together or alone. You could even love them not at all. Either way, I trust you to pick what’s right for you, the way I trust you to care for the gift I’m going to give you.”

“…are you sure about that?” Shane said, leaning his face closer to hers. “I- am I really—?”

Skyla smiled. “Shane,” she said tilting her head up at him, brown eyes peering deep into his. “Only a person of the highest character can handle the power. The Red Ranger thing is just a plus, and everyone knows it. Including Hunter and Dustin.”

“Skyla- Skyla!” Shane hissed as she began to close her eyes and slide even more onto him, as if she was collapsing. Shane hurried, only absently realizing as he sat that he rested against the back of one of the trees he had first freed Skyla from all those years ago.

“It’s time,” she whispered, starting to glow in his arms.

“Skyla…”

“The responsibility is yours,” she said as she lightened. “Use it wisely. Good-bye Shane.”

“Good-bye Skyla,” Shane said, willing his eyes to stay open as she faded until, at the last minute, he watched as the white orb of light she had been erupted in a swirl of red and yellow, shifting in the air in front of him until—

_Skyla’s a phoenix,_ Shane thought to himself as slowly the flames shaped itself into a bird. “Wow,” he murmured aloud.

A small cry came from the bird, one that sounded loud and joyous, right as it cast a tiny tendril of flame right onto his morpher. The heat briefly twisting the metal Air Ninja disc on its head to a whole other shape that Shane guessed must’ve had meaning in Karminian before it shifted back.

“Thank you,” Shane whispered, and watched as the bird flew into the air and vanished.

 

 

_May 18, 2003, 12:15 PM_

Shane was leaning against the counter in the kitchen at Ninja Ops. Tori and the others had managed to save her birthday cake from what (to Shane) had sounded like a Kelzack crashed birthday party, and he was sitting there licking what was left of the frosting from a slice of the birthday cake when he heard the door open.

“I- oh, hey.”

“Hey,” Shane told Hunter as the other walked in. “What’s up?”

Hunter shrugged. “Just thought I’d try to see if there’s any of the birthday cake left?” he said. “I’m totally starving.”

“Yeah, there’s some,” he told Hunter, using his foot to gently pry open the kitchen door. “I’m surprised you didn’t go out with Blake.”

Hunter scoffed. “Dude, he went out to eat with _Tori_ ,” he said as he reached in. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

“Or that over protective a brother?”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “And there’s no way I’m watching Cam de-orange Dustin out of his fake spray tan, that’s like watching paint dry. Undry. Whatever,” he said.

“True that,” Shane replied.

For a moment the men were silent as Hunter took a slice of what was left of Tori’s birthday cake, carefully holding it in his hand as he put the rest away and leaned back against the kitchen table across from Shane.

“So…I can’t believe you guys wound up fighting Kelzacks at the beach,” Shane said at last.

“I can’t believe I watched you sprout robo-wings and engage an alien in aerial combat,” Hunter replied.

Shane grinned. “Yeah, the Battlelizer’s cool,” he said, remembering how it had felt to see a blast of fire emerge from the armor Skyla’s gift of power had turned out to be. “Makes me glad I trained in the Air style though, seeing as how it had Fire wrapped into it.”

“I bet, though I’m not gonna lie, it’s probably not as cool as that Skyla girl must’ve been,” Hunter said. “Wish I’d gotten to meet her, get to know her a bit.”

_It’s okay, she already knew you,_ Shane thought, but refrained from telling Hunter. “I’m sure you would’ve gotten along,” he told the Crimson Ranger.

Hunter nodded. “I bet,” he mumbled as he swallowed some cake. “Girl definitely knew her armor.”

“She knew her armor?”

“Not every day you run into a girl who can give you an eight-pack visible from five hundred feet in the air,” Hunter said before freezing where he stood.

“I have an eight-pack?” Shane teased.

“Ah…”

“Is that what you were looking at when I landed?”

“I—”

“Because I gotta tell you, I thought you were looking a lot lower than that.”

“…I was,” Hunter whispered.

“Oh. _Oh,_ ” Shane said, feeling surprisingly hopeful. “Really?”

Hunter glared. “That suit’s unfairly flattering on you.”

“Good to know.”

“…that’s it?” Hunter asked slowly. “No worries about me, you know, _looking_?”

_Be cool,_ Shane thought to himself. “Looking’s fine,” he said to Hunter. “I look at you all the time.”

“Not like that.”

“Only because you’re biker gear’s all baggy,” Shane admitted.

“…what about today?”

“What about it?” Shane said shifting off the counter.

“You saw me in my swimsuit at the beach.”

“Yes,” Shane said, feeling himself blush, “Yes I did.”

“Were you looking then?”

“I-the swan was a little distracting, but—”

“ _Dimitria_ , you- you _were,”_ Hunter said, sounding shocked.

“…is that a problem?” Shane asked.

“Yes! I mean, No!”

“Which is it?”

“It’s—”

“Use your Big Brother words, dude, I _know_ you’ve got them.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t mind you looking, but yes, it’s a problem,” he hissed, carefully putting what was left of the cake on the kitchen table. “I didn’t- I didn’t—”

“You didn’t—”

“I didn’t know you were gay,” Hunter blurted out.

Shane sighed. “Not many people do,” he said softly. “I’m not…out, or anything. Boarders.”

“Oh. _Oh._ I gotcha,” Hunter said.

Shane looked at the other man, who seemed relieved. “And you?” Shane asked.

“I’m…not out either,” Hunter replied. “Ninjas.”

“Ninjas?”

“Thunder Academy is really strict on the whole “fraternizing between students” thing, especially if you’re the Sensei’s son,” Hunter said flatly.

“Ah.” Shane said. _Bet that’s why Cam hasn’t dated anyone, far as I know,_ he added to himself.

“…So you think I’m cute?” Hunter asked.

Shane scoffed. _In for a penny._ “Bro, you’re lean, gold-tanned, and the sun’s even bleached your hair. _Everyone_ thinks you’re hot,” Shane admitted. “Like, the conversations Dustin and me—”

“You and Dustin talk about me?” Hunter asked.

“You and Dustin talk about _me_.”

Hunter winced. “He told you about that,” he said, sounding flustered.

“Oh yeah,” Shane said. “Way to _not_ _let me know_.”

“I thought you’d be upset!” Hunter said.

Shane shook his head. “Man, and to think Dustin wants us to share you.”

“…I’m a little lost here,” Hunter said, running a hand through his hair.

“Dude, you just got cake batter in your hair.”

“I- great, that’s- that’s not the important part here.”

“Right,” Shane said. “The important part is now you know that Dustin and I both want you, and since I’m not hearing a no back, I’m guessing you’re…”

“Seriously behind the loop,” Hunter grumbled. “Man, I don’t even know how you’re that _calm_ about it.”

“I have spent, like, over a week thinking this over,” Shane admitted.

“A week!?” Hunter shouted, the volume just loud enough to make him look for a brief moment out the kitchen doorway to see if anyone was coming down the hall, before lowering his voice to say “Dustin told you a week ago?!”

“Yeah, and he’d taken _two_ weeks,” Shane said, “but it’s less that and more Skyla to be honest.”

“ _What_? That makes no—”

“Finish the slice Sparky,” Shane told him, gesturing at the cake, “and I’ll explain.”

“Oh I gotta hear this Feathery,” Hunter said as he picked up the piece of cake on the table and began to take bites of it.

“So I’m not out,” Shane said to the other man. “Dustin and Tori are pretty much the only ones who knew, but that- that made this hard to figure out. It’s not like there’s a lot of people I can talk to about this, who get me enough with that. But Skyla…Skyla _already_ knew. Said she knew everything about me, which I swear turned out to be less creepy than it sounds, and she _trusted_ me. Trusted me enough to give me firepower, and trusted me enough to make a good decision on this. And you gotta know that’s- that’s a lot of trust placed in me.”

“We trust you to make plenty of decisions out on the field.”

“Sure, but those are tactical decisions based on what’s going on, not decisions about _my love life,”_ Shane pointed out. “I haven’t- don’t have one of those really. So for her to say that, to say she trusted me, got me to thinking that maybe I oughta trust myself too. So here’s me, trusting myself, telling you the truth man,” Shane told Hunter as he finished off the slice of cake. “Fighting, working? I’ve loved it. I’ve _loved_ it, and it makes me want to be around you more, to know what you’re like when the pressure isn’t on, when you’re hanging out on the back of a bike or in that shack of yours. It makes me want that a lot. And Dustin? I’ve pretty much _grown up_ with him, he gets me and grounds me like nobody’s business. We’ve pretty much always come together like a single package. Which makes me happy that I _can_ choose to be with both of you, because this would be _ridiculously_ hard if I couldn’t.”

“Shane—”

“And I don’t know what it’ll be like,” Shane went on. “I don’t know if it’ll work, or for how long, and a part of me is really panicking inside at the idea of what the other skateboarders will say about me dating two bikers—”

“That you moved up in the world,” Hunter teased.

“—but I’ve spent _years_ hiding what attracts me, months keeping my feelings to myself, and nine days thinking over what Dustin’s said, and I can’t- _won’t_ let this go. I’m trusting me, I’m trusting my heart, and I’m trusting the truth, and the truth is I want you guys. _Both_ of you. I think this could be awesome. And I’m telling you because now? Now it’s up to you. You can have me, you can have Dustin, and you can even have us both. It’s your call, and you can take as long as you need to think it over. I promise we’ll both respect it.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” Hunter mumbled.

Shane smiled gently before reaching out and- with a daring he didn’t know he had- gave the other man a quick kiss on the check. “Let us know what you decide,” he whispered.

Hunter remained quiet as Shane walked passed him out the kitchen.


	19. Chapter XIV: When the Lights Go Out

_“I know what you wanna do.”_

  * 5ive



 

 

_May 28, 2003, 2:03 PM_

“So on a scale of one to ten,” Blake was asking his brother from where he sat at the kitchen table looking at a surfing magazine, “how happy are you that final exams means you _don’t_ have to look at the relationship trouble eye-candy on a daily basis?”

Hunter looked up from the couch where he had laid down to watch TV. “Seven,” he replied.

“Seven?”

“I can miss seeing their faces,” Hunter said defensively.

“But not the drama?”

“No,” Hunter sighed. “Not the drama.”

After getting over the initial shock of being asked and pecked on the cheek— and getting over Blake laughing at him when the Navy Ranger had found him standing in the kitchen with cake frosting still stuck to his fingers tips— Hunter had been spending the past week seriously trying to consider what Shane had told him. He’d worried it be hard to do when he spent every waking moment around Dustin and Shane, but then it turned out that final exams were starting at Blue Bay Harbor High (“Go Dolphins!” Tori had cheered sarcastically.) This meant that suddenly the number of hours all five of them were spending together everywhere _outside_ of school dropped tremendously as Tori, Dustin, and Shane crammed in all the studying that Ranger duties had prevented them from doing earlier in the year.

Consequently, there was no Dustin or Shane at Storm Chargers, bending in distracting ways to open boxes. There was no Dustin riding beside him on the track, or Shane to watch jumping in front of him at a demo. It was just him and Blake, and sometimes Tori studying in the back of the store, a sight which had left Hunter pining for a Lothor or someone to attack just so that he could _not_ see Blake looking wistfully at her or think about the part where two guys wanted to date him. At once.

 _But no, for once, even Lothor seems up for a break too,_ Hunter reflected. The entire study week had gone uninterrupted by even so much as a pack of Kelzacks, and three days into the ten day exam period things looked as likely to stay calm as ever. So Hunter resigned himself to having to deal with his brother and his feelings, unsure which would be worse, until life once again intervened, and tried to squeeze some rest in. And It would’ve been entirely restful if Blake, for his part, hadn’t been fulfilling his duties as younger brother to the Crimson Ranger by bringing up Shane’s proposal every chance he got.

“I still don’t get what’s so hard about it,” Blake said, flipping a few pages. “You want them, they want you—”

“—two of us aren’t out and have next to no dating experience,” Hunter said bluntly.

“So?”

“You don’t think coming out for a relationship that none of us have ever seen isn’t a problem?”

“Excuses, bro. Lame excuses.”

“How is that _lame_?”

“Because all your friends already know the three of you are into each other,” Blake said. “Like, the only person who might not know would be Kelly, and only cause she probably doesn’t want to know. There’s _nobody_ who’d be shocked about this.”

“Doesn’t make it any less scary,” Hunter grumbled.

“You’re a Lightning Thunder ninja and a _Power_ _Ranger_. Who’s going to _stop_ you?”

“Who’s stopping _you_ from dating Tori?” Hunter grumbled.

“No one,” Blake told him, closing the magazine before putting it down on the kitchen table. “I was going to ask her out formally before exams started, and now I’m just waiting till they’re over.”

“Oh.”

“Uh-huh,” Blake said. “But hey, at least we’ve hung out at the beach and gone to the movies together, not to count hanging out at Storm Chargers. Like, there’s something to work from there.”

“You also got alien attacked every time.”

Blake huffed. “Still better than just one kiss and pining for months over two kinds of your types actually wanting you back.”

“That’s one kiss more than you’ve gotten,” Hunter said, dodging his brother as Blake picked up the magazine and threw it at him.

“But for real bro,” Blake said, sounding serious as Hunter picked up the magazine and put it on the living room table. “What’s going on in that head of yours? Even back at the Academy you didn’t hesitate this much, and you had to deal with Leanne filtering your dates then.”

“I dunno,” Hunter admitted. “It just…it seems bizarrely soon and too fast, you know?”

“…No. No I don’t.”

Hunter sighed. “I spend all this time around these guys right?” Hunter explained.

“Yeah?”

“Like, they’re pretty much everywhere we hang out. Track? Dustin at least is there. Ops? Shane and Dustin. Storm Chargers? Dustin and Shane. Alien attack? Both of them again.”

“And Cam,” Blake interrupted. “Though wow, he’s _really_ going to feel like a third wheel when this happens, isn’t he?”

“If _Cam_ decided to ask all three of us out, trust me, I’d say yes and be done with it.”

Blake got up and walked over to the couch, looming over it to stare at his older brother. “Bro, you already have two guys. Are you _seriously_ that desperate?”

“Dude, he’s wicked funny and smart. He’s practically _never_ been wrong about anything or anyone,” Hunter pointed out. “If he thinks it’ll work, it’d work. Plus you know my thing about dark eyes and dark hair.”

“Oh _Dimitria_ , preserve us from men who have a type,” Blake grumbled. “Two of them he can’t handle, but throw in a geeky third and suddenly he’s _all in_.”

“See, that’s my problem though!” Hunter said. “Literally _everything_ about Dustin and Shane is _so_ what I like, it feels bad to just pick both. Like, shouldn’t I have some deep emotional bond brought out by months of active combat that would tell me which one of them to pick?”

“No? Dude, you may be older than me, but even _I_ know life isn’t a Hallmark special and you’re not, like, a _college grad_ looking to marry or something,” Blake said as Hunter spluttered on the couch. “You want to date two guys you find hot and fun to be around. A lot. They apparently feel the same way.”

“Yeah, but—”

“We are literally spending our days fighting evil alien space ninjas,” Blake pointed out. “You wanting to date a couple guys is so far from the biggest worry we’ve got. I say go for it.”

“Still, it feels weird to know that I could get into a three-way ninja spar with them and move like-like—”

“Like a thunderbolt?”

“—like I’d known them my whole lives, but _still_ don’t know what their hopes are or families are like, you know?” Hunter said.

“Do _they_ even know that?” Blake challenged. “I mean, Tori and I talk all the time, and I don’t know all her hopes and dreams. I doubt she’s thought all that out either.”

“How mature of you.”

“Try normal,” Blake said. “And what are you worried about their folks for? Shane doesn’t seem to talk about his much, and you _already_ have Dustin’s dad’s approval.”

“Dude, don’t remind me,” Hunter said, shuddering on the couch. “I still can’t believe Dustin just casually did that.”

Blake stared. “I thought it went well?”

“I was wearing track overalls!” Hunter complained. “I should’ve at least been in _jeans_.”

“Your gone enough on him that you planned the clothes you’d wear.”

“ _No_ , it’s called having good manners.”

“It’s _called_ you should’ve let me post onto that fansite of his that you’re a Golden Guy.”

“Fan girls are scary,” Hunter said. “You didn’t have to run for your life from Lothor’s.”

“Like Dustin’s would be anywhere near that bad.”

“They crashed Ninja Ops!”

“Besides, thought all that running with Dustin and Shane felt good?”

“It did, but—“

“And we’re back to why you won’t end the pining and date them,” Blake repeated.

“It’s just- it _feels weird_ dating them.”

"“But you would date them if Cam asked all three of you out.”

“Again, has not listening to Cam _ever_ gone right?”

Blake blinked. “That is both horrible and scarily workable,” he said, sounding surprised to Hunter.

“I know,” Hunter said, and for a moment the two of them grew quiet, the silence only broken by the sound of the local television show _Totally Talented_ ’s game show host Stu announcing a talent contest.

“That’s it!” Blake shouted.

“What?” Hunter said.

“The talent show! That’s the answer to your problem,” Blake told him. “Wait! There was a flyer around here somewhere.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Hunter said, sitting up as Blake went to tear the page out of the magazine. “How does that solve anything?”

“You want them to see you outside of being a Ranger?” Blake replied, returning with the page and brandishing it in front of his brother. “This would do it. If either of them can stand you ra—”

“ _Bro_ , don’t _go_ there—”

“Then that’s the one you date,” Blake finished. “It’s like the best tie-breaker.”

Hunter looked at the flyer, and then up at his little brother. “You know if I’m doing this I’m taking you down with me.”

Blake shrugged. “Tori saw me covered in artificial flavoring and still wanted to date me,” he replied. “That woman can handle this.”

 

 

_May 29, 2003, 12:32 PM_

“So we’re telling them, right?”

“Yeah, we’re totally telling them,” Hunter said firmly.

“You sure?” Blake asked as they walked into Storm Chargers. “Because I for one think we should just keep this on the down low until we get _on_ the show.”

“But they won’t watch us if they don’t know we’re on it. Exams, remember?”

“I really doubt- yo, what’s up guys?” Blake asked as they reached the lounge, finding that Dustin, Tori, and Shane were there staring at a blank TV screen. “Where’s Stu?”

“Denied,” Shane told them, gesturing at the turned off TV in the lounge as he sprawled back on the lounge couch, the view drawing Hunter’s eyes downwards. “Looks like this is going to be the _lamest_ exam recovery break _ever_.”

“Oh well,” Hunter said, doing his best to look Shane in the face. “I was sick of watching it anyway.”

“You did _not_ just bag on Stu,” Dustin said angrily.

“No!” Hunter said quickly, his eyes flicking over to the Yellow Ranger and seeing his hands gripping a water bottle tightly, the grip making his bicep flex out. “It’s not- I was sick of _watching_ it, not being on it.”

“…what’s the deal?” Shane asked Blake.

“They’re looking for future stars,” Blake told them, flourishing the flyer in front of them as he had Hunter.

“We try out next week,” Hunter added.

“But what do you guys do?” Dustin asked.

“We do plenty!” Blake told him.

“Yeah,” Shane said slowly, “but who would want to watch you?”

 _Ouch_ , Hunter thought as he watched Dustin and Shane high-five. _That would definitely hurt if they’d ever heard me rap before._

“You know Shane, you have a great voice,” Tori spoke up. “Maybe you should try out.”

“And you’re a fierce dancer,” Shane replied. “Maybe you should.”

“What about me, sax master extraordinaire?” Dustin interrupted.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Hunter heard Blake ask nervously. “Are you all _cutting—?”_

“I gotta go,” Tori said, getting up to go as Dustin shouted that he was going to practice his sax.

“I don’t believe it,” Hunter told Blake as the Wind Ninjas filed past. “ _Man_ , this is all _wrong_.”

“I told you we should’ve kept it on the down low.”

“I didn’t think they’d try to compete against us!”

“Bright-side? At least they’ll see us up close and in person,” Blake pointed out.

“Yeah, but we have to _compete_ with them.”

“Big deal. It’s not like they’d let us lose to them on purpose, and it could be kinda awesome. Don’t tell me you don’t want to hear Shane and Dustin serenading you.”

“We do wind up working together whenever we try to compete,” Hunter said thoughtfully, ignoring the (admittedly nice sounding) idea of getting serenaded by the male Wind Ninjas, “but the last time _I_ tried to compete with any of them, I ended up fighting a boxing kangaroo alien and running a triathlon with Shane. There’s _no way_ this isn’t going to end in an alien attack.”

Blake huffed. “What possible alien is going to come after us on a talent show?”

 

 

_May 29, 2003, 1:30 PM_

“So this guy,” Hunter said, pointing at the image in the scroll of a man labeled _Warlord Shimazu_ , “and his wolves-wolfblades? Wolfblades,” he corrected himself when Cam nodded, “are roaming around Blue Bay Harbor now, hundreds of years after he was killed? How is that possible?”

Hunter and Blake had seen the wolf reports on the news, and had managed to run out of talent show practice to catch up with Tori and Dustin out in the Blue Bay Harbor woods in time to help them fend off the first attacks by the wolves, Hunter feeling strangely happy about having something to fight for once. Together they had fended them off, only to return to Ninja Ops and learn that Cam— who had just been visiting the Blue Bay Harbor’s Asiatic Art museum to retrieve an artifact— had come under attack by one of the mannequins.

The artifact now sat on the table, next to the unrolled scroll depicting the man in whose image the mannequin was created.

The mannequin itself was apparently the one attacking with the wolves.

It had taken every fiber of his being for Hunter not to turn around and tell his little brother just _how much_ he’d told Blake so.

“And don’t forgot Lothor,” Dustin was reminding the other Rangers, his attempt to be heard making him lean gently against Hunter’s arm- the touch, Hunter couldn’t help noticing, drawing Shane’s attention gratifyingly across the Ninja Ops table.

“Dustin is correct,” Sensei Watanabe said. “There is a good chance Lothor was the one who brought him to life, and they may already be allies.”

Suddenly an alarm went off.

“Looks like he’s back,” Cam said, pointing at the screen.

“Then let’s go get him,” Shane said. “Cam?”

“I’ll track you all from my zord,” Cam said. “The Samurai Star Chopper is at your disposal.”

“Great,” Hunter said, “let’s get this over with then.”

“Maybe we’ll finish fast enough to sneak in some rehearsal time,” Blake muttered to his brother as they moved to leave Ninja ops.

“I doubt it,” Hunter replied.

“Be optimistic bro!”

“I was right about there being an alien attack whenever we compete,” Hunter told his brother as they began to streak. “Just watch me be right about this.”

 

[One disastrous megazord battle later, and Hunter was _seriously tired_ of being right.]

 


	20. Chapter XV: Hear a Hurricane’s A-Blowing

_“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.”_

  * Paul McCartney



 

 

_May 29, 2003, 2:01 PM_

“Okay, listen up everybody,” Cam announced as he looked at the Rangers sprawled out exhaustedly on the Ninja Ops floor. “The zords should be back online tomorrow at the latest, but we’re going to need reinforcements if we want to take on Shimazu again.”

“I am open to suggestions,” Shane said back, not bothering to raise his head from the floor.

“Yeah, I definitely didn’t expect wolves to be that hard to beat,” Blake muttered. “I mean, they’re fuzzy four-legged creatures. We fight with metal zords.”

“Told you not to be optimistic,” Cam heard Hunter grumble back, only to yelp when the Navy Ranger elbowed him.

“Please tell me you have a plan,” Tori said to Cam. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re all out of ideas here.”

“Yes, I have one,” Cam said, turning to his father, who was still standing by the keyboard where he had monitored the Zord battle.

“Thank Ninjor.”

“Dad,” Cam said to Sensei Watanabe, “I think this is a pretty clear case of emergency.”

“You have my permission,” Kanoi replied.

“What’re you- oh _dude_ , are you going to open that box thing you got from the museum?” Dustin asked, getting up from the floor excitedly, the other Rangers slowly joining him while Cam walked over towards the stack of scrolls where he had left the wooden case that he had grabbed from the museum before Shimazu attacked.

“It’s a chest, not a box, Dustin,” Cam corrected as he brought it over towards where the other Rangers stood.

“But we’re finally going to see what the big deal is?” Blake asked him.

“Anyone wanna take bets on what it is?” Hunter said as Cam opened the box.

“Cool sword,” Shane told him.

“An ancient staff!” Dustin said.

“Or…maybe it’s just another scroll,” Tori said, the Rangers groaning at her words as Cam picked up the scroll.

“Let’s not knock it till we see what’s on it,” Cam said, beginning to read.

The scroll was lengthy.

_A great calamity has come upon our people,_ it read. _Darkness prowls in the night. The peasants whisper of howling monsters in the woods. Sensei has spoken with Samurai Lord Shiba, who has informed us that the Dark Warlord Shimazu has passed the boundaries of their mountainous lands and may well have come towards us, seeking the powers of the Ninjas in his desperation._

“Hey um, Cam?” Shane started. “I just wanted to ask—”

“Shush, I’m reading,” Cam replied. _And what a read it is,_ he thought, only absently noticing the other Rangers walking away, though he did catch Dustin’s “okay, since Cam _only_ gets scrolls, next time somebody _else_ opens the box,” something Cam knew he’d be talking to him about later.

_The council has met, and it has been decreed that Earth Ninja Ash shall open the portal to the Ancient World to invoke the aid of the Mammoth One, the ancestral spirit of their line, in the hopes that perhaps it may overwhelm these wolves that hunt and cut us down. I, Water Ninja Willow, cannot help fearing for this, for it shall take the power of us all to open the door, and until Ash’s return we shall not be able to harness_ any _powers save that of our own bodies. Yet what other choice is there?_

An alarm went off, the jarring sound drawing Cam’s attention.

“The wolfblades are back. They must’ve guessed our plan,” Cam said to the room, glancing around to see only his father watching him. “Wait, where is everyone?”

“You have been reading for some time my son,” Sensei Watanabe replied. “The other Rangers have returned to their duties.”

“You mean rehearsing for that talent show,” Cam grumbled.

“It is a commitment they must honor.”

“Right now?”

“No,” Kanoi agreed. “Now we must act quickly to prevent Shimazu from hurting anyone else.”

“But it’s not- according to this scroll I’d have to harness an _impossible_ amount energy because we need to open a portal _to the Ancient World.”_

“Nothing is impossible my son. We have called upon great power before.”

“Yeah, but this time my amulet wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to ask the Rangers to give up their powers too for a while,” Cam clarified.

Sensei Watanabe blinked. “That _is_ a great deal of power.”

Cam sighed. “I know.”

 

 

_May 29, 2003, 3:05 PM_

“You want _what_?!” Tori shouted at him.

Cam winced. “Your power discs,” he told the other Rangers, who had quickly come back to Ninja Ops when Cam had called them over their morphers, though he could’ve sworn he’d heard Dustin thanking someone for throwing him change before hanging up.

“Dude, I know I’m the slow one,” Dustin said in a bashful tone Cam had long recognized he only adopted when he knew he was going to ask unwelcome questions, “but doesn’t that mean we _won’t_ have our Ranger powers?”

“Only until I get back.”

“I don’t like that idea,” Blake admitted.

“Yeah,” Hunter added, “I’d like to kick some space ninja butt if I have to.”

“Evil alien butt,” Dustin corrected.

“We’re talking terminology now?”

“I understand your hesitation rangers,” Sensei Watanabe interrupted, “but it is the only way, and you will still have your ninja abilities.”

“How is giving up our discs going to help us defeat Shimazu?” Shane asked Cam.

“According to the scroll there’s a powerful being that can help us defeat Shimazu in the Ancient World, the world of spirits that underlie our own,” Cam told him, trying to look at all the of the Rangers carefully. “To get there I need to open a portal.”

“It’s always through a portal,” Dustin grumbled. “Just once I’d like it to be, you know, like, next to a pizza shop or something.”

“My amulet isn’t strong enough to do that alone,” Cam continued. I’ll need everyone’s power to open it and then to close it on my way out.”

“And in the meantime?” Tori asked.

“In the meantime, CyberCam’ll activate the zords for you. You’ll just have to operate them in civilian form using your ninja powers.”

Silence fell in the aftermath of Cam’s words.

Shane glanced around at everyone. “I _want_ this back,” he said as he handed Cam his disc. “You got that?”

“You’ll get it back. I promise.”

“ _I_ just want everyone to know this is _bogus_ ,” Dustin grumbled as he handed his over.

“You’re just annoyed that it’s CyberCam watching out for us,” Tori said as she gave Cam her disc.

“Well yeah, I trust Cam more.”

“ _Cam_ made him.”

“The dude locked him up in a closet!”

“Yo, that’s all in the past man,” CyberCam’s voice rang out. “I’m a cooler, chiller CyberCam now. Unlike the giant three-headed dog on the loose, which, _hello_ , you all _did_ notice that?”

“You _really_ need an attitude adjustment,” Dustin shouted at the ceiling.

“That’s not in my programming.”

“Just…from one Sensei son to another, get back to us safely, okay?” Hunter asked Cam as he gave him disc, who nodded his head.

“It’s just a few clicks to the portal site,” Cam informed him. “Shouldn’t have any trouble getting there.”

“Still, Good luck,” Blake said, handing Cam the last of the discs.

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

 

 

_May 29, 2003, 3:30 PM_

“So this is the cave,” Cam said as he looked around.

Dodging the battle to run through the woods to the portal site hadn’t been difficult, with the portal door opening as he arrived, the force of it throwing Cam into a cavern that contained only a small operating console on one side and a more ancient looking oven that stood sealed and embedded inside the wall.

“This is a surprisingly modern design,” Cam muttered to himself as he walked over towards the console. “I wonder if it would look like this to anyone who came here, or if it’s just the Ancient World reacting to me.”

The console was simple in structure: a rectangular top, unmarked except for six circular indents. “Okay, there’s no way whoever would build this could know a samurai was going to be involved to make that sixth circle, so it’s _definitively_ reacting to me,” he said staring at the console. “But seriously Ancient World, Ninja Ops’ keyboard is more complicated than this. Not that I’m complaining because it’s nice just to insert things, but still. I could’ve handled a few more buttons.”

Cam hurriedly slid open the side pouch that he had put the discs in, taking them out each one by one and placing them onto the console.

“If Dustin was here, he’d probably tell me to say something momentous,” Cam muttered as he slipped his, the last disc, into position. “But honestly I’m more a fan of action than words.”

Cam had barely stopped speaking when the sealed oven doors swung open with a loud clang.

“What the- _oh_ ,” Cam said, looking inside the oven. There, resting on the floor of the oven, was an emerald green shamisen.

The shamisen wasn’t _that_ surprising. If the Ancient World could recognize his tech background enough to create a basic console for him, it made sense that it would be able to recognize his Samurai power disc and manifest a way to reach the Mammoth that a samurai would be able to use. It made him incredibly happy to have taken up Tori on her advice to investigate his samurai heritage, for having managed to learn how to play stringed instruments like it during the downtime the other Rangers’ exam week had brought.

What _was_ surprising was in having it connected to a microphone.

“Oh Dimitria, the Mammoth has the same sense of humor that Dustin does,” he muttered to himself as he picked up the guitar, holding it in his arms while he tucked the microphone into the pocket of his ninja uniform. “Guess we’ll find out who has hidden talent now. But first, better grab these too,” he added, reaching over to pluck the power discs out of the console, the motion sealing the now empty oven behind him.

One he had secured the discs in his pocket next to the microphone, Cam held the shamisen against his shoulder. “Let’s just hope all the stories about this are real,” he said, before shouting. “Strike mode engaged- power disc locked and loaded!”

Pulling his hand downwards Cam used his disc to fret along the strings. _I really hope that worked,_ Cam thought as he listened to the sound resound almost electronically in the cavern, echoing against itself until the reverberation sounded like—

_Wait, it is,_ Cam thought excitedly as he heard a sound akin to an elephants trumpeting, only lower and much, _much_ louder. _The Mammoth One: It must be taking on the shape of a zord!_

Cam continued to play as the Mammoth Spirit approached, a fact he was only distantly aware of as the Ancient World faded away around him, leaving him on what he guessed was one of the Blue Bay Harbor downtown office towers. Off in the distance he could see the Thunderstorm Megazord fighting a giant three-headed wolf monster. “Guys check it out!” Cam said into the comms, continuing to riff on the shamisen.

“Oh dude, you should try out for Totally Talented!” Cam heard Dustin reply over the comms. “Wait, is that a microphone? Dude, can you _sing_ _too_?!”

“Dustin, not now,” Tori answered. “Cam, please tell me you got more than that for our power discs?”

“I’m calling it the Lightning Riff Blaster, and—”

“What?” Blake asked. “You couldn’t call it anything better?”

“Actions speak louder than words Blake,” Cam said as he played, sensing the Mammoth Zord approaching. “Check it out.”

“Oh _dude_!” Hunter said, his words being followed by the other Rangers making sounds of excited approval as they watched the Mammoth Zord arrive. “Why didn’t you say so?!”

“ _Ninjor_ , that thing’s _huge!”_ Tori shouted.

“Bro, did an _entire city block_ disappear into the ground?” Dustin said. “Tell me you guys saw that happen.”

“I know I did,” Shane responded.

“It’s from the Ancient World Dustin. It doesn’t recognize modern cities,” Cam explained to the other Rangers as he continued to play, shifting his weight onto one foot. “Now, I’m sending you guys your power discs. Once you’re morphed, we’ll see what the Mammoth chooses to do.”

“Awesome!” Shane shouted. “Let’s finish this!”

The Mammoth Zord trumpeted as it approached the Megazord. Lowering its majestic trunk it looked right at the wolf monster with a glare.

“Ah, is Mammoth ticked?” Tori asked.

“He _did_ beat Shimazu the last time,” Shane suggested. “He might have a grudge.”

“We’re really sorry about this,” Cam muttered to the zord softly, hoping the communication lines in the Ranger lines wouldn’t pick it up. “Apparently they just sealed Shimazu up last time.”

The Mammoth Zord shook its head.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Know what Cam?” Dustin asked.

“Nothing! Nothing!” Cam replied hurriedly.

“Dude, were you talking to the zord? Can it talk?”

“Is it just a zord, or is it a zord _now_?” Blake asked.

“Yeah, I had always been told the Mammoth is the Earth Ninja ancestor spirit,” Hunter said.

“It is,” Tori confirmed. “We got taught that our first year.”

“Wait, then why did Cam get to go?” Dustin complained. “Dude, _so_ not cool!”

“Guys, not now,” Shane said. “Dustin, you can bond with Mammoth later after we’ve sent this rabid pack to the pound in the sky.”

“Right, right,” Dustin said. “Wolf ending first, awesome Mammoth party times later. Hey Cam, did my ancestral spirit bring any discs with it?”

Before Cam could respond the Mammoth trumpeted again, raising its trunk—

And unleashing what Cam thought was _every_ ninja power disc and sphere he had ever seen, the weapons rolling down its trunk along the street almost pinball style to bowl over the wolves as the Mammoth Zord charged at them, a beam of pure white light firing from its trunk itself.

“Yes. Yes he did,” Tori said as Cam watched the onslaught.

“Aw yeah,” Dustin cheered. “Earth spirit in the house baby!”

 

_May 31, 2003, 1:00 PM_

_Okay Cam, you can do this_ , Cam muttered to himself as he walked onto the sound stage located inside Blue Bay Harbor’s own KIEM-TV broadcasters. Glancing around Cam could see teams of singers, dancers, and musicians tuning and stretching around the television channel’s set for Totally Talented, the show sign hanging prominently over a small performance stage. _It’s not like it’s your breaking bricks in front of everyone or anything._

"Cam?” a voice he recognized as Blake’s asked, sounding surprised.

“It’s definitely not CyberCam,” Cam said, tipping the brown Stetson on his head as he turned towards Blake.

Blake grinned. “Hey guys, look who decided to join in on the Totally Talented showdown!” Blake called out to the other Rangers.

“Hey, that thing’s not going to summon up any ancient mammoths is it,” Hunter asked as he approached, gesturing at the guitar. “I don’t know if the stage’s large enough for it.”

“It might,” Cam told him as the others came closer. “I’ve been known to rock a few bones.”

“Nice words man,” Shane told him. “Too bad you’re going to come in second or third.”

“Or fourth.” Dustin added, just as an announcement that the show was about to begin was made. “Though you better have that thing ready, ‘cause once we hit summer break, I am _so_ chilling with The Mammoth One. Hey, maybe I get it to join me for a carnival day with my zord?”

“A carnival day?” Tori asked him.

Dustin shrugged. “I mean, it’s not catching Finding Nemo with you, but I’m _not_ about to figure out how much popcorn one mammoth can eat.”

“Still, carnival rides might be a little _small_ for it,” Cam pointed out. “Not to mention the part where your zord would take it up in the air.”

Dustin snorted. “Man, if you can willingly come out of Ninja Ops for something, I’m sure the founding spirit of, you know, _my entire line of ninjas_ can handle it.”

“You _sure_ about that?”

“Calling Blue Bay Group Number 11! Blue Bay Group Number 11!” a voice announced.

“Okay we’re on!” Shane shouted, running off with Tori and Dustin following behind him.

“Aren’t you guys going?” Cam asked Blake and Hunter, gesturing.

“Nah, we’re in the act after you,” Hunter said, shaking his head.

“Besides, how _else_ do we get to watch all of that?” Blake said, gesturing towards the stage in front of them.

Cam glanced more carefully at the Wind Rangers from where they stood just behind the curtain that separated the backstage from the front. At Tori, warming up to dance, her navy lace halter clinging to her arms as she stretched. At Shane patting down the red fireman’s jacket he wore (one that Cam vaguely remembered Dustin had given him as part of a Carter Grayson cosplay the year before) as if to hide the lyrics that Cam was sure was in one of the pockets. And finally at Dustin— the most formally dressed of them all, in a long yellow-sleeve shirt matched with black pants and suspenders, a trilby cocked on his head— as he quietly checked his saxophone.

“It’s…definitely an admirable sight,” Cam said at last, wondering how he came off in his leather boots and green paisley of a shirt.

“It’s more than that,” Hunter grumbled.

“Well _yes_ ,” Cam said. “But I expect you to act with decorum in public, no matter how appealing the attraction of Dustin and Shane giving you an R&B serenade is.”

“Oh Di- hey, _wait,_ did you just—” Hunter started as Blake bent over cackling, the gesture crumbling the red-white-blue polka dotted vest and the silver crest on the shirt he wore. “How did you—”

“I’m not blind,” Cam said. “It’s none of my business either, but let’s talk about this after I wipe the floor with you.”

Hunter smirked. “You can’t outplay me rapping,” he challenged, fingering the crimson street graphic on his own coat.

“He’s got a point there,” Blake told Cam. “He had years of practice singing at the Thunder Academy’s talent show and in the training crater to hone that skill.”

Cam smirked back. “Just watch me.”


	21. Part IV: Standing Together




	22. Chapter XVI: Sink to the Bottom with You

_“I love mirrors. They let one pass through the surface of things.”_

  * Claude Chabrol



 

 

_June 17, 2003, 1:45 PM_

_Now this is the life,_ Tori thought as she felt her surfboard rise on the water, catching a wave firmly enough for her to stand up on it and ride the curl into Blue Bay’s Harbor Shoreline. _All sun and surf, no aliens or academics._

The ending of exam week couldn’t have come soon enough, and like nearly every teenager in Blue Bay, Tori had been determined to make the most of the time between school ending and grades coming out— grades Tori was _sure_ would be higher than she probably deserved, not that she was complaining— by spending her day out on the water.

_Hmm…better clean this off a bit_ , Tori noted as she slid onto land, seeing how the gritty sand had come across the board top. _Don’t want to slide off the muck._ Picking up her board she walked further onto the beach, where she could lay the board out more easily without getting in the way of the other surfers.

“Dude, babe alert,” she heard a guy, tanned with curly, cropped hair, say to the guy next to him as she passed by.

“I was checking out her moves,” the guy next to him said. “Not bad for a babe!”

Tori rolled her eyes as she knelt on the sand, reaching out to wipe the sand off her board with her hand. She’d been out on the waves maybe ten minutes before she’d seen the two muscle heads watching her from the shoreline, leaning against boards stuck in the sand. At first she thought they’d just been waiting for the surf to even out more since it had started off pretty choppy that morning, but apparently the two were less interested in the waves and more interested in her.

Which was annoying but not unexpected. Tori knew that weren’t many girls still surfing at the level she did. Blue Bay didn’t even have enough to field a competition team, which Tori still lamented to Kelly about on occasion. But somehow that had translated into a batch of male surfers who thought that meant all the girls surfers were all little Gidgets waiting to get noticed by them.

_Even the ones that start off cute,_ Tori thought, remembering how her one and only date with Dill had gone.

“As long as she move out of the way and leaves the swells for us, I've got no problem,” the tanned one was saying.

“Yeah. I mean, we could teach her a few things, if you know what I mean,” his friend teased back, flicking his hair behind him. “Blondes like her always need _real men_ to show them what to do.”

_Ugh, like_ what _, how_ not _to condition your hair?_ Tori thought as she watched the curly, limp dreads of red hair fail smack back against him. _Puh-leaze._ Glancing down at her board Tori saw that she’d managed to clear most of the sand off.

_Well, better not let them hog the surf._ “Excuse me,” Tori said aloud as she shuffled past them.

“Steady on,” the dark-haired one told his friend. “Sheila on the way!”

“We live in _California_ , not Australia, you poser jerk,” Tori muttered to herself as she paddled out, hearing them laughing behind her. “Who do you think you’re kidding?”

_The sad thing,_ Tori reflected as she sat on the water, _that might actually have hurt my feelings a little before Lothor hit. It’s not every day someone besides Blake or Shane comes to watch me surf, and that tan one…well, it would’ve hurt._ _Thankfully,_ she thought to herself, _if there’s one thing five months of fighting alien ninjas with three bikers, a skateboarder, and a coder has taught me, it’s that I’m way stronger than anything they could say_. _Never thought I’d be saying fighting aliens was a good thing, but I guess posers will do that to you._

Tori didn’t have to wait long until the next wave came, her board again rising easily with the swell. “Here we go,” she murmured to herself.

Moving quickly Tori caught the swell, her board coming to rest right on its crest with ease, but Tori had only been standing a few moments when suddenly she felt the water twist below her, making the board shake.

“Whoa!” she cried out, the sound coming out muffled to her ears as she slid off the board and into the water.

 

 

_June 21, 2003 Time Unknown_

When Tori came out to she found herself on the beach. “Ow,” she said. “Ow. Ow.”

Standing up carefully, Tori brushed herself off before looking around, wondering if anyone had seen her crash, only to freeze at the sight.

“Alpha, I don’t think we’re in Blue Bay anymore,” Tori murmured to herself.

To begin with, everything looked artificially tinted. The sky was less blue and almost greenish, the sand less the familiar color brown-tannish color she knew but a brickish-clay color. Behind her the water was silty and brown, though the waves rippling through it moved with enough fluidity that Tori could tell it wasn’t that color due to pollution.

The biggest change though was the Kelzacks.

_Ninjor_ , _how are there so many of them_?! Tori thought horror-stuck. Everywhere she looked there seemed to be at least five of them. _I gotta do something_!

Tori glanced around. _Stereotypical, but let’s start with that one_ , she decided upon seeing a Kelzack struggling with an old lady sitting on an inflatable beach chair. Running over Tori grabbed the Kelzack and throw him off, kicking him away from the lady as fast she could.

“You’re safe now ma’am,” Tori said absently to the lady as she tried to scan the beach.

“What did you do that for?” the lady shouted at her.

Tori stopped. “That was a Kelzack,” Tori told her slowly as she turned around to look at the woman, who was sitting on her chair clearly upset.

“Yes, and he was kind enough to help inflate my chair!” the woman replied.

“I- I thought he was attacking you!”

The lady harrumphed. “Next time, mind your own business sister.”

“Okay,” Tori replied as the lady walked off. “I…clearly need to find the guys. Yeah, they’ll know what’s happening.”

Tori glanced around and, after seeing everyone was distracted by the Kelzacks, promptly streaked to Storm Chargers.

“Guys,” Tori began as she opened the door, only to find the entire store filled not only with Kelzacks, but also with monsters that she knew for a fact the Rangers had defeated. “Uh…wow, okay,” Tori said to herself as she slowly edged her way in. “I- Kelly!”

“Yeah?” Tori heard her reply as Tori stared at her. The Kelly she knew dressed like many of the small store owners in blue Bay harbor: in jeans and neutral shirts, and occasionally a really nice top that complimented her long, lightly-auburn hair if the weather was nice. This Kelly was dressed like a Goth: her hair dyed black and pulled up in a messy honeybun, her clothes leathery and dark enough to match her inky lipstick and the choker around her neck.

“Hi,” Tori said quickly, hoping she hadn’t stared too long. “You’ve changed your hair and everything.”

“So what are you, the fashion police? Look blondie,” Kelly continued before she could reply, “you come here to buy something or bash my gear?”

“I came to find the guys.”

“A lot of the guys come in here. Can’t remember them all.”

“I meant the guys that worked for you,” Tori said slowly, hoping that this Kelly would know who she was talking about.

“Oh, _those_ guys,” Kelly replied. “Hey, stock boys!”

Tori turned to look at the door…just in time to see Choobo and Zurgane walk out the door, and immediately stumble over themselves.

“No way,” Tori whispered to herself as she watched Kelly start shouting out them. “I have to sit down.”

“Once again, Blue Bay Harbor is under attack by those menaces, the Power Rangers,” a voice that sounded eerily like her mother’s voice could be heard saying.

_What the_ , Tori thought, looking up and seeing that the television in Storm Chargers had been turned on and put on the local news channel, showing the Red, Green, Navy, and Crimson Power Rangers laughing as they blew up parts of the industrial sector of Blue Bay Harbor.

_“_ Our advice,” the voice was saying, “is to stay indoors and avoid confrontations with these deadly masked individuals.”

_Well, at least I know where to find them,_ Tori thought, and hurriedly she streaked out of the store to Ninja Ops, pausing to change into her uniform before entering.

“Hey guys, the whole city’s flipping out,” Tori said as she walked in, knowing that the others could hear her, before coming to a stop and seeing that not even Ninja Ops had been spared the change: the monitor alert screen, she noted, was now purple instead of green.

“Hey Tori, there you are,” Shane said.

“You missed out,” Hunter added. “We were on fire- out of control!”

_Glad something’s never change_ , Tori reflected, noticing how comfortably Shane stood next to Hunter and Blake, Cam standing a bit away from them. “Didn’t you guys hear me?” she asked aloud. “I saw on the news that the Power Rangers are out there trashing everything!”

“Like he said,” Shane replied, sounding almost proud. “Out of Control.”

“You know it babe,” Hunter said leaning over to kiss Shane.

_Okay, maybe everything changes,_ Tori thought as she watched, almost missing how Cam’s hands twitched at his side as if they wanted to pull one of them towards him. _This- either I’ve been gone way too long, or this has to be some kind of alternate dimension._

“What, that _was_ you guys?!” Tori said as they broke apart.

“Shh, don’t tell anyone!” Hunter said, stepping towards her. “We don't want to get trouble!”

“Aw, babe, what’s with the whole goody-goody routine?” Blake teased. “Hey, I'm sorry,” he continued, seeing the look on Tori’s face. “My bad. What are you going to do, _cry_?”

“Hey guys, I'm almost done with the mechanical weapon that'll rock this town!” Tori heard Dustin call out.

“This is why you're the mechanical master dude!” Cam replied to him, causing Tori to look past the rangers standing in front of her to where—

_Dustin_ ’s _in the_ _Ops chair?!_ Tori noted stunned. _Oh this world_ is _evil._ “Sensei?” Tori asked, hoping that their teacher could explain what was happening.

“Young woman, if you don’t want to be a Ranger anymore, you know where the waterfall is,” Tori heard him reply just as she spotted him, still in the shape and size of a guinea pig, standing judgmentally in the corner. “Don’t let it splash you on the way out.”

“Come on Tor,” Blake asked her. “Are you with us or not?”

“If you’re talking about trashing the city, then not,” Tori admitted.

 

_June 17, 2003 Some Time Later_

“Okay there's gotta be an explanation for this,” Tori told herself as she walked around what she was relatively certain was still the park in front of Blue Bay City Hall, still trying to overcome the shock at having had to fight her way out of Ninja Ops. “It's either a bad dream or a parallel dimension.”

“Parallel Dimension it is,” she confirmed after pinching herself proved to actually hurt. “Yeah, that- that could explain all this. Ninjor, I was _hoping_ to avoid the evil twin dimension, I—wait,” she added as she saw two women dressed in autumnal, hippie-looking flower crowns and flowing dresses, standing in front of her and singing what sounded like an incredibly off-key song about flowers growing, “who are _you_ supposed to be?”

”Hi, I’m Marah Marigold Moonbeam,” one of them answered.

“And I’m Kapri Rainbow Chaser.”

“We’re folksingers!” they both shouted before bursting into song again, Marah beginning to shake a tambourine as Kapri strummed a guitar.

“Okay I get it,” Tori said hurriedly, not wanting to relieve the painful experience that had been hearing how badly the two of them had sung weeks ago when they snuck into the Totally Talented showcase. “Now, let me get something straight: aliens, Kelzacks, various monster types, are all _good_?”

“Oh yeah,” Marah replied.

“And everyone’s afraid of the Power Rangers.”

“Of course!” Kapri shouted, clutching her guitar to her chest. “They do whatever they want, push people around. They’re totally evil!”

“You’re not from around here are you?” Marah asked.

“Clearly,” Tori said simply. “What am I going to _do_?”

“Is something wrong?” Kapri asked. “Can we help?”

_…oh why not_. “I have this problem,” Tori said carefully, “and I need someone really _smart_ and _powerful_ to help me.”

“You could always see the major of Blue Bay Harbor,” Marah suggested after a moment. “He’s totally groovy.”

“Yeah, and he’s a Libran, so he’s, like, _totally_ balanced,” Kapri added.

_Well, if he’s balanced, maybe he can help._ “Can you take me to him?” Tori asked Marah and Kapri.

“Of course! Helping people is likely our favorite thing to do,” Marah answered, Kapri nodding enthusiastically beside her. “Well, besides unicorns.”

“Great, but first promise me something.”

“What?”

“No more singing!” Tori said, trying to sound sweet.

“Aw, okay!” Kapri said as they began to walk towards the Town Hall, the familiarity of its location comforting Tori. “We know not everyone has our taste in music.”

“It’s less that and more I’m feeling really overloaded,” Tori said. “I’m new here and this is all a lot to take in.”

“Oh, gotcha!” Marah said. “We’ll be really quiet then.”

“Yeah, we don’t have to be Chatty Cathys,” Kapri added.

Torie smiled politely at them, wondering how the Kapri and Marah of their world would react to these two helping a Blue Power Ranger willingly. _Probably freak out,_ Tori reflected as they walked. _Except for Marah, maybe- Ninjor, I hope me and Dustin’s right about her._

The rest of the walk passed quickly, and Tori soon found herself standing in front of a desk that clearly had a copy of the official seal of Blue Bay Harbor mounted on the wall behind her. It was a strange mark of formality in a room that was otherwise decorated with shag carpet and furnishings that looked they’d come straight out of that Austin Powers Goldmember movie that Dustin had dared her to watch with him last year.

“So just take a seat,” Marah said, directing her towards a sagged, purple fringed, part wicker lounge chair. “The major will be with you shortly.”

“Wait, aren’t you guys staying?” Tori asked.

“No, we gotta go,” Kapri said. “We’re performing at a pop-up puppet show downtown this afternoon. But groove on girlfriend!”

“I-oh, we’re _hugging_ now,” Tori said, quickly bringing her hands up to embrace Kapri and Marah, who gently squeezed her for a moment before running out.

_I really hope the mayor is as balanced as they say he is,_ Tori reflected.

“Ah, someone’s here!” a voice called out from what seemed like a doorway in the corner of the room. “How can I help you, ma’am?”

Tori looked towards the speaker and saw Lothor standing there in a white suit.

She barely had time to think _Nope_ before she fainted.

 

 

_June 17, 2003 Even Later On_

“I hope you boys have learned your lesson,” Lothor was saying.

“What, that if we trash anymore stuff we'll get our butts kicked?” Dustin replied.

“Well no wonder you’re the smart one. Take them away!” Lothor ordered.

Tori watched as a group of Kelzacks arrested the male Power Rangers, Hunter talking about his plans to pick up skateboarding instead of destroying the town. _I can’t believe that worked,_ she thought.

It almost hadn’t. By the time Tori had come back to her senses in Lothor’s office the Rangers had begun to attack the industrial sector of the city again, and she’d been forced to leave an unconvinced Lothor to fight them. At least, she’d _thought_ he’d been unconvinced, until Lothor had appeared with Kapri, Marah, and a handful of monsters and Kelzacks in tow and fought the power Rangers.

Tori wasn’t certain what had been more hilarious— Choobo beating Dustin at arm wrestling, Marah blasting Blake with an orange-tinted peace sign, or Cam and Lothor boxing— but it had been strangely fun to watch the fight for once, almost like she was actually still on vacation and watching a bad TV show in the Storm Chasers lounge.

“Guess all that ends well _is_ well,” Tori said aloud to Lothor as he walked towards her. “Thank you, for everything.”

“No, thank _you_ for everything,” Lothor said. “I hope this incident hasn’t ruined your time in our fair city.”

“It has been interesting,” Tori said carefully, “but what I'd _really_ like to do now is go home.”

“Maybe you should go back the way you came?” Marah said as the group began to walk away from the scene of the fighting. “That always works for me.”

“Marah, you’re so smart!” Kapri told her.

“Aw thanks— and you’re so pretty!” Marah replied.

“That…might work,” Tori said thoughtfully while the two walked up ahead.

“Whether it does or not, on behalf of Blue Bay Habor, let me simply say you have our appreciation,” Lothor told her. “Our lives are now safer and better because for you having been here.”

 

 

_June 17, 2003, 5:02 PM_

“I don’t know Tor,” Blake was saying.

“You still don’t believe my story?” Tori asked.

“Not the part where I totally _bag_ on you, no.”

Tori felt herself smile shyly from where she and Blake sat on the picnic blanket he’d brought for their lunch date at the beach that day, its red-bluish plaid pattern standing out against the brown sand of the isolated corner of the shoreline they’d found.

Marah had turned out to be right. Trying to surf (and subsequently wiping out) on the brown water had brought Tori back to her world, washing her ashore just in time to help the others fight off a giant alien butterfly that had seemed surprised that Tori had escaped what he called his “gold dust dimension.” Once he’d been defeated they had gathered back at Ninja Ops, and Tori had told them all what she’d seen.

 

_[“So what you’re telling me is that Lothor was good, I was a mechanical genius, we were all evil, and Hunter wanted to pick up skateboarding?”_

_“Yeah Dustin, that’s…that’s what I’m telling you,” Tori had said to the Yellow Ranger._

_“That’s…really hard to believe,” Cam had replied from where they had gathered in Ninja Ops. Her story had been greeted by the others at first with fascination, then awkward stilted silence as they slowly realized she wasn’t kidding about having had to team up with people they knew of as evil space alien ninjas to defeat them._

_“For you maybe. What, I do know bikes,” Dustin had added when he’d seen the look on Cam’s face. “And Lothor_ was _an Earth Ninja. It’s not a stretch for me to be an evil genius or for him to be chill helpful dude.”_

_“Dustin you don’t have an evil bone in your body,” Tori said._

_“You mean, except for the one I guess I have in alternate dimension.”_

_“I was going to be picking up_ skateboarding _.” Hunter reminded Dustin._

_“And I was going to do_ moto _,” Shane had added._

_“…okay, fair point.” Dustin had conceded.]_

“But you did!” Tori said.

‘No, I didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because,” Blake said defensively, “no matter dimension we're in, I'd still l- _like_ you. Listen,” he stammered on, as if he’d noticed how Tori had blushed but was adorably trying to remain cool, “what were you doing showing off anyway? You don't need to prove yourself to those muscle heads.”

“That _was_ stupid,” Tori admitted, “but it’s not like a lot of people watch me surf, and to hear them say those things- I mean, it didn’t hurt like it would’ve before, but it just made me so _mad_ , and it’s way better to take it out on the surf than start something on the beach.”

“I guess,” Blake said. “Wait, it would’ve hurt before? Before what?”

“You know, before all this,” Tori said. “The aliens, the training—”

“And me?”

“And you,” Tori admitted.

Blake grinned. “I _knew_ you liked me.”

Tori rolled her eyes. “You know, one of those muscle heads was kinda cute.”

“Oh yeah?” Blake said challengingly.

“Mmmhmm,’ Tori told Blake. “Tanned, short black hair—”

“—oh so you mean he looked like me.”

“—and shirtless.”

“I can fix that,” Blake blurted out, the comment making Tori laugh.

“Nah, I like you just like this,” she replied.

“Glad to hear it,” Blake murmured. “Tor?”

“Ye-yes?”

“Promise me you won’t go surfing again without a buddy?” Blake said.

“I promise I’ll _try_ to avoid surfing when angry, but I’m not going to be surfing with someone every time I hit the waves like a five year old.”

“Guess that means I’ll just have to stop by even more to watch you surf.”

Tori grinned. “You ready then?”

“Ready for what?”

Drawing on a confidence she hadn’t known she’d had when she’d seen Dill all those months ago, Tori leaned over and kissed Blake on the lips.

“You just volunteered,” she told him as she drew back, and laughing grabbed her surfboard and ran off into the waves, knowing without looking that Blake was following her into the waves.

 

_June 24, 2003 8:45 AM_

“Hey Shane, have you noticed something usual about Blake lately?”

“No,” Shane told her, looking up from where he was working on a skateboard at the counter of Storm Chargers. Now that school was out Kelly had been asking Dustin and Shane to try to cover an occasional morning shift so that Hunter and Blake could get in some track time, something the two men hadn’t minded doing at all, even if it not being able to sleep in every day. “Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” Tori said truthfully, leaning onto the counter. “He hasn’t been wanting to hang out lately, and he’s always going somewhere. It’s like he’s got some big secret.”

“Are you talking Ranger secret or real-life secret?”

“I just said I don’t know Shane.”

“No, I meant- you don’t think it has to do with your picnic date thing?” Shane whispered.

“I- no!” Tori said defensively.

“Because it _is_ normal to wait a few days in between dates to see each other,” Shane continued, “and you know he’s pretty much only interested in you—”

“You mean Hunter _still_ —”

“No,” Shane huffed. “No, he hasn’t, and I gotta say, I’m beginning to think Dustin was right about us having to make the first move, because I refuse to let my mirror-verse evil twin have the better love life.”

Tori laughed. “I see you and Dustin marathoned Star Trek again, she said to him.

Shane nodded. “It’s a summer ritual Tor,” he said. “Embrace it.”

“Yeah no. I’d rather watch Firefly or Buffy.”

“Oh, you mean earth Buffy and space Buffy?”

“You don’t get to judge me, Mr. ‘I watched Farscape for the plot.’”

“That show is a masterpiece!”

“You mean _John Crichton_ is a masterpiece.”

“Same difference,” Shane muttered, looking back at the skateboard.

“Too bad it’s over now,” Tori teased.

“So’s Firefly and Buffy.”

Tori grinned. “At least Buffy’s got reruns,” she said. “You have _no idea_ how annoyed I’d be if exams had stopped me from catching that finale.”

“And you have no idea how glad I am that not even having to fight an _alien kangaroo_ stopped me from catching my finale. Thank you VHS recording,” Shane said.

“Kangaroo…hey, wasn’t that the same day you and Hunter—”

“And we’re back to Bradleys and their passively-avoidant ways.”

“What about us?” a voice said.

Tori turned her head and saw that Hunter was coming towards them, walking up with what Tori thought was forced casualness.

“Nothing,” Tori said hurriedly, turning around to rest her back against the counter as Shane began to fiddle with one of the skateboard’s wheels. “Shane was just telling me how much he liked Farscape.”

“ _Tori_ —”

“Bro, you too?” Hunter said, sounding excited.

“You- you liked Farscape?” Shane asked.

_Oh Ninjor, here we go_ , Tori thought as she lopled back and forth between them.

Hunter nodded. “Blake and I managed to catch most of it on Lothor’s ship and got the rest on VHS from moto folks,” he explained. “It was _awesome_. I mean, John Crichton _alone,_ man. Still can’t believe they cancelled it.”

“I know!” Shane said. “Thank Kendrix Stargate and Smallville’s still on.”

“Dude, you’re catching those too?!”

“So what did Blake think? About Farscape, I mean,” Tori interrupted.

Hunter rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t that impressed, but honestly he’s still catching up on stuff,” he admitted to her. “Right now he’s trying to find Buffy tapes.”

“Wonder why,” Shane said, glancing at Tori.

“I could loan him those,” Tori said, ignoring the look on Shane’s face. “Any idea where he is?”

“Um, no,” Hunter admitted to the others. “He’s been off doing some big project thing that he won’t tell me about. I, ah, think it might be a present for you,” he continued, lowering his voice, “but you didn’t hear it from me.”

Tori smiled. _I hope that’s true,_ she thought to herself. “Well, if you run into him, let him know I’m game?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hunter said. “We’re gonna be trying out some new tires that just got in over at the sand tracks, I’ll tell him then. Thanks.”

“No, no, thank you,” Tori said.

“I’m sure Blake’ll thank you too,” Shane said.

“Hey Shane,” Tori said sweetly, “didn’t those new gloves Hunter ordered come in?”

“Ah, yeah,” Shane said, glancing back and forth between her and Hunter.

“Sweet!” Hunter said.

“It _is_. Shane, why don’t you take Hunter into the back and give them to him?” Tori suggested. “That way you guys can bound over your apparently _obscene_ love of sci-fi.”

“Uh, I mean—“

“You don’t have to go or anything,” Hunter stammered. “I’m not- we _can_ talk about other things.”

“No, it’s fine,” Tori told the Crimson Ranger as she started to walk towards the door. “I have to go to Ninja Ops anyway. Morning sparring session with Dustin.”

“Let us know if anything happens,” Shane told her.

“Sure,” Tori called back as she reached the door. “Tell me if…Hunter doesn’t get gloved?”

Shane huffed. “I’m sure they’ll fit fine.”

“Better,” Tori could just hear Hunter say to Shane as she left Storm Chargers. “There’s three hours-worth of my paycheck at stake here.”

 

 

_June 24, 2003 8:55 AM_

“So you just left them there?” Dustin asked as he dodged a punch, twisting to throw his arm back.

“Look, maybe you and Blake have to watch that pining, but I don’t,” Tori said, blocking a grab from Dustin. “The look on his face when you and Shane were performing on Totally Talented was enough.”

Dustin blinked. “What look?” he asked, bringing his arms up to block a kick.

“Oh it was sappy as maple syrup,” Blake said from where he stood next to Cam at the Ninja Ops monitor. He had come to talk with Cam about ways to possibly hide the Thunder Zords, walking in just after she and Dustin had begun sparring in the open space near the back of the Ninja Ops main hall.

“Yeah?” Dustin asked, sounding pleased.

“Oh yeah, he was one low-key power ballad belt away from drooling onto the bleacher seat,” Tori confirmed, reaching out to strike. “Seriously, maybe you and Shane should just serenade him out of our collective misery. It can’t hurt.”

“You thin- hey, ow!” Dustin said, rubbing his head after Tori cuffed him. “No using potential boyfriends as a source of distraction!”

“If I can handle a boyfriend distraction,” Tori said, gesturing towards Blake, “then so can you.”

“I’m distracting?” Blake said gleefully.

“And suddenly I’m glad that I never put face cameras into the Ranger helmets,” Cam interrupted, the rest of what he was going to say cut off by a blaring noise as the Ninja Ops alarm sounded.

“What- are those… _balloons_?” Dustin asked as he and Tori came towards the monitor.

“Either that or really nasty hiccups,” Tori said, looking at the alien.

“Let’s go,” Dustin told her. “Blake, you- hey, wait, where’d Blake go?”

“He was just here,” Cam said slowly as he looked around the room.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Tori said to them as she also glanced around her, seeing that Blake had snuck out while they had been talking. “Today’s been the first time in close to a _week_ that I’ve even gotten a hello out of him.”

“Alright, you try to track him down Tori,” Cam said. “Dustin, you head off, and I’ll see about getting Shane and Hunter to join you.”

“Right,” Tori said as she streaked out, barely hearing Dustin respond “on it” as she went.

_Now, if I was a Thunder Ranger trying to hide, where would I go? Where would a Thunder Ranger…oh, right, the woods, duh,_ Tori decided as she ran, streaking over to the forest outside Blue Bay Harbor just in time to see the Navy Thunder Ranger run into a cavern a few quietly ahead of her.

_Gotcha,_ Tori thought, waiting a few seconds before she followed him into the cavern, a cavern that soon turned out to be a mineshaft that seemed to have been built almost like a maze underground.

“Must lead to some Thunder thing,” Tori murmured to herself as she walked, trying to follow what she felt sure were Blake’s footsteps in the dust of the cavern floor. “Can’t be too much longer.”

Tori walked a few more moments, gradually hearing the sounds of metal striking upon metal. “He _better_ not be in- Blake!” Tori cried as she exited the mineshaft. Blake appeared to be fighting a masked ninja on what looked like a moss-covered arena, its edges covered by palms and stones while scattered about is floor were slabs of boulders that Tori guessed had been cut so precisely by older thunder rangers. “ _Blake_!”

“Tori, no!” Blake shouted as she ran over, intending to block the other ninja only to be hit by the weapon they were holding, the force of it throwing her to the ground. “You okay Tor?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tori said, getting up.

“What are you doing here?” Blake asked.

“Well there’s an alien attack happening, but you weren’t there when the Ninja Ops alarm went off, so I followed you,” Tori explained to him. “And I see it’s a good thing I did.”

“No, it’s- it’s okay Tori,” Blake said. “This is Leanne. She’s Thunder Ninja Academy Class of 2000”

Tori watched as the ninja took off the mask, revealing a woman who wasn’t much older than Tori, her long brown hair spilling out from under the hood of the mask. She looked at Tori knowingly.

“Oh. Thunder Ninja,” Tori said, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “Not a threat.”

Leanne smiled. “I’m glad we finally get to meet,” she told Tori. “My little brother here’s told me all about you.”

“Little brother?”

“Oh yes,” Leanne answered over Blake’s spluttering. “My father’s Sensei Oromino, and he pretty much adopted these too, so.”

“ _Leanne’s_ a thunderblade champion,” Blake managed to interrupt, gesturing towards what Tori thought kinda looked like a—

“Is that a _naginata_?” Tori blurted out, running a hand along its edge.

“It is,” Leanne confirmed. “And be careful, it’s pretty sharp.”

“Of course she’d recognize it,” Blake muttered to himself.

“But I thought the blade was only on one end!” Tori said to the other woman.

“Thunder rangers like dual wielding,” Leanne told her as Tori looked admiringly at it. “We may have made a few adjustments.”

“Isn’t it also a _female_ samurai weapon?”

“Don’t tell Cam,” Blake said hurriedly. “Please, _please_ don’t tell Cam. I will _never_ hear the end of the appropriation lecture.”

“I won’t,” Tori said. “So,” she added, looking at Leanne, “I’m guessing you’re helping him learn how to use this?”

Leanne nodded. “I used to train him at the Thunder Academy, but we put it on hold for a while.”

“Leanne had been chosen to study some special techniques from a Thunder master in Nepal,” Blake said, sounding proud.

“That’s awesome!” Tori said.

“It was,” Leanne confirmed. “Right until Lothor attacked and kidnapped my father, my home, and everyone I ever grew up with while I was on the other side of the Pacific Ocean from him.”

“…yeah, that sucks.”

“Thankfully,” she continued, “my father had entrusted this blade to Blake before they left, and Blake was smart enough to hide it here where Lothor wouldn’t know to look for it, so now we have something to work with.”

“And you’ve been training all this time?” Tori asked Blake.

Blake flushed. “I-mostly it’s just been this week. Earliest time Leanne could get off from her job as a P.E. teacher down in Angel Grove.”

“I would offer to try to help you all fight Lothor,” she admitted, “but, well, _Angel Grove_.”

“Yeah, no, I get it. Though I wouldn’t tell Dustin you’re from there unless you want to be grilled about how many teenagers want to be Power Rangers,” Tori told her. “But Blake, seriously, you’ve been out here practicing all this time?”

“Where did you think I was?” Blake asked curiously.

Tori shrugged. “I didn’t know. Hunter guessed it might’ve something to do with—”

“Oh Dimitria, never trust Hunter when it comes to making intuitive guesses,” Leanne said laughing. “Blake’s always been better at those.”

“I noticed, but- seriously, why didn’t you tell me you were off doing Thunder training?”

“He used to try to hide it from the other Thunders too,” Leanne told her when Blake didn’t answer. “Something about them being judgey about him wanting to a learn girl’s weapon.”

“Oh really?” Tori said, glaring at Blake. “Huh. That was stupid of them.”

“They were pretty stupid people,” Blake replied. “But they _did_ live around me, so, you know.”

Leanne laughed. “I think it's kinda cool the way you came after me to defend your friend,” she told Tori. “Even if he’s being a paranoid idiot without reason.”

“Me too,” Blake said softly. “And my bad, about the hiding.”

“Apology accepted,” Tori said to him.

“So, there’s an alien attacking?” Leanne asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” Tori said, just as a pack of Kelzacks appeared.

“Yep, definitely an alien attack,” Blake said, picking up his weapon.

“ _Kelzacks_? Here?” Leanne said asked, looking at the pack that had begun to circle around the edge of the space towards where they had been standing.

“They don’t exactly wait to be invited,” Tori told her as she shifted into a fighting stance.

“Well, in that case,” Leanne said, picking up her weapon, “let’s do this.”

“Ready to see how a double-bladed sword gets wielded Tor?” Blake asked as he began to run.

“Oh yes,” Tori called after him.

 

 

_June 24, 2003 12:17 PM_

“And that’s how you fight with a double-bladed weapon then,” Tori said to Blake as they walked alongside the beach. They had managed to streak to where Cam had informed them the alien was, arriving in time to help Shane, Dustin, and Hunter defeat it, right after the Kelzacks had disappeared and they saw Leanne off:

 

[ _“You sure you don’t want to join in the fight, now that you’re here and all?” Tori had asked._

_Leanne had shaken her head. “I think one alien fight’s enough for now,” she had said to them as the Kelzacks had disappeared. “I’d rather save my energy in case it’s needed later.”_

_“Sorry o have to fight and run though,” Blake had told her._

_“It’s fine. I know what it’s like to have a job to do, and I’ll try and visit before school starts up for us again in August. “_

_“Nice.”_

_“This time though I’m taking your blade with me,” Leanne said. “That way we_ both _know it’s out of alien reach.”_

_“But—”_

_“Blake give her the sword,” Tori said. “Leanne, it was a pleasure meeting you, and I hope we get a longer time to talk when you come back.”_

_“Likewise, Tori,” the other woman had said.]_

 

“Yeah, that’s how,” Blake said, bring his hands up to rest behind his neck. “What’d you think?”

“I thought it looked nice,” Tori told him. “I’d offer to train with you, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously though Blake,” Tori said. “You know you don’t have to hide things from me like that, right?”

“I know,” Blake grumbled.

“I mean, communication is the basis of a good relationship you know,” Tori continued. “Can you imagine what I might’ve thought if I just saw you and her riding around town? Or if Hunter or Shane had?”

“If Hunter and Shane has seen her, Leanne would still be here,” Blake told her.

“Really?”

“She used to like to filter out the people Hunter was interested in. It was kinda needed, honestly,” Blake admitted. “A lot of people only wanted to date him because he was Sensei Oromino’s son, but sometimes I think she may have gone a little overboard.”

“Overboard how?” Tori said.

“Well, sorta deciding for him, if that makes sense?”

“Yeah it does,” Tori said, remembering how she’d felt about Shane telling Dill off for her. “But, still, you know what I mean Blake. You actually need to _talk_ with your girlfriend if you want to keep her.”

“So we’re making it official then?” Blake asked, suddenly sounding happier than he had been.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re trying to change the subject.”

“…I promise not to hide training sessions with my adopted older sister,” Blake said automatically, “but for real, _are_ we doing this? We’re becoming official? I can call you my girlfriend for real now and be all sappy at the track too?”

“Please don’t give the motocrossers even more reasons to hate your family.”

“Tor…” Blake whined.

Tori laughed. “I don’t recall us _not_ doing that, but yes,” Tori said. “I guess we’re official.”

“ _Right on_!” Blake cheered, leaning over and kissing her.


	23. Chapter XVII: Feel the Earth Move

_“If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”_

  * Khalil Gibran



 

 

_June 27, 2003, 9:38 AM_

“And then we ran on the beach, the waves glistening behind us.”

“Blake.”

“Then we grabbed a couple of smoothies from that new Bulkmeier place that opened downtown—”

“Bro, we _know_ ,” Hunter complained to his brother.

“Hey, let him talk,” Dustin said good-naturedly. “He’s only been waiting for Tori to date him forever.

“You’re sure it doesn’t weird you out?” Blake asked him.

Dustin shook his head. “Nah, it’s all good.”

“Cause dude, you have no idea how happy I was when she said we were. Like, I’m taking her to see Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle tonight just because I can say my _girlfriend_ and I are going out tonight. It feels _righteous._ ”

“Yeah. I mean, waiting for someone to date you does suck,” Hunter told him.

Blake glared across the Storm Chargers counter at his brother. “Oh. Yeah?” he asked.

 _And we’re back to awkward_ , Dustin thought as he watched Hunter fidget, the edge of the counter catching Hunter’s shirt enough to hitch it up, briefly flashing the edge of Hunter’s waist. The brothers had come from the track to meet Dustin at the store when his shift was over to go with him, Shane, and Tori to Ninja Ops for training, but Dustin had soon realized from the way Blake kept glancing between them that there had been words about Hunter and him and Shane.

 _Really wish Shane hadn’t said we’d wait him out_ , Dustin thought as he looked across the store at the people browsing. _This’d be over_ much _faster if I could just—_

“Speaking of waiting,” Dustin said aloud, “where's Shane? He knows tsunami cycle training is the one class I never want to be late for.”

“There he is,” Hunter said just as Dustin caught sight of Shane coming in.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Dustin asked, taking in the sight of the Red Ranger walking towards him, the motion making Shane’s sleeve-torn red shirt bat haphazardly against his shorts.

 _Oh no, he’s wearing the angst shirt._ “You don’t look so good,” Dustin asked. “You good?”

Shane blinked at Dustin. “Oh, yeah,” he muttered. “I just… found out my big brother’s coming to town.”

“Yeah that’d bum me out too,” Blake said.

“Hey!” Hunter shouted at his brother. “I am _right here_.”

“I know,” Blake told him, rolling his eyes. “But no, for real, what’s the matter?”

“Shane and his brother aren’t, ah, on close terms,” Dustin said.

“No kidding?” Hunter asked, looking concerned.

“No kidding,” Shane confirmed. “It’s just, he’s like the _perfect_ son. Successful, nice job, great house, perfect wife...not much into skateboarding.”

Dustin could almost feel the _or guys_ hanging in the air. “Why doesn’t he try motocross?” he asked, hoping to distract Shane.

“So not the point dude, trust me,” Shane answered ruefully.

“I know what would cheer you up,” Blake said. “Tsunami Cycles.”

“Yeah bro, nothing can compare to shooting _laser_ _beams_ off a motorcycle,” Dustin added, heading for the door. “And we gotta hurry. You know Tori hates when we’re late.

“There’s the real reason Blake’s in a hurry,” Shane grumbled to Hunter.

Hunter glanced at Shane. “Ah, Dustin,” he asked. “Give me and Shane a second?”

“Okay…” Dustin said hesitantly.

“Dude, come on,” Blake said, walking Dustin out of the store, the Yellow Ranger just managing to catch a glimpse of the Crimson Ranger leaning to rest a hand on Shane’s shoulder before the Storm Chargers’ door slammed shut.

“You sure we should leave them in there like that?” Dustin asked Blake as they walked across the parking lot towards where Tori had parked her white minivan. “You know things aren’t totally copacetic right now.”

“That’s _exactly_ why we need to leave them like that. Do you have any idea how much Hunter li-I mean-”

“Dude, I know Hunter’s into Shane and me,” Dustin said flatly. “You can say he likes us.”

“See, but I can’t. Hunter’s asked me not to.”

“...he asked you not to say he likes-?”

“Anyone,” Blake stated. “The Thunder Academy wasn’t exactly big on seeing him date.”

“I know that,” Dustin said, remembering what Hunter had told him the night they had kissed. “But I didn’t know it was bad enough to swear you to silence.”

“What’s this about dating?” Tori asked as the boys reached the van, Blake opening the front door to sit next door while Dustin hopped into the back. “Talking about me again?”

“Always,” Blake said quickly before leaning over and kissing her on the lips.

“D’aww,” Dustin cooed. “Young love.”

“Oh shut up,” Tori said blushing.

“And Hunter said those exact words at the counter as Blake recounted your righteous beach date _again_.”

“If I knew you were going to brag about that much I’d’ve taken photos,” Tori told Blake.

Blake grinned. “Next date,” he promised her.

“Next date?”

“Wanna see Charlie’s Angels with me tonight?”

“Aw, Blake—”

“Was just telling me that the Thunder Academy didn’t like Hunter dating,” Dustin interrupted.

“They-huh?” Tori asked. “Why?”

“You remember what I said about Leanne filtering Hunter’s dates from the folks who just wanted him because he’s Sensei Oromino’s older son?” Blake asked tiredly.

“ _I didn’t_ know that,” Dustin said. “Seriously, the sword-lady had to cut the men down?”

“Women,” Blake went on. “Mostly women. The men…Hunter couldn’t even come close to dating someone without even more problems kicking in.”

“Judge you for using girl weapons, having to hide who you date- you Thunder Ninjas sound awesome,” Tori said flatly.

“I blame the lightning strikes,” Dustin told her. “Too much stress.”

“The point is,” Blake interrupted. “He wound up not dating women, and I don’t know if anyone besides me, Leanne, and Sensei even knew he was into guys. So he just didn’t date. At all. It was pretty much be the best son Sensei Oromino could ever want or bust.”

“ _Wow_ that’s rough,” Dustin said.

Tori turned to stare at Dustin. “ _Wow that’s rough_?” she echoed. “That’s-that’s all you’ve got?”

“I mean, yeah, it totally blows that he had to keep it under wraps at the Thunder Academy, but it’s not like he has to _now_ ,” Dustin told her. “His brother knows, his adopted family knows, we all know, and two of us _want to date him_. He doesn’t have to be the Chosen Child anymore.”

“Still…”

“It makes the drama make a lot more sense huh?” Blake asked her.

“You thinking then that Hunter might be trying to help Shane out?” Dustin asked Blake, who nodded.

“Help Shane out with what?” Tori asked.

“With Shane’s brother’s coming back into town,” Dustin said.

Tori groaned. “Ugh, _Parker_ ,” she said, resting her head on the steering wheel.

“He can’t be that bad, right?” Blake asked.

“Dustin?”

“Yeah I know,” Dustin said, picking up his morpher. “I’ll call Cam and let him know why we’re gonna be late, you fill Blake in.”

“Seriously?” Dustin heard Blake ask right as he pressed the comm button on his morpher.

“Dustin?” Cam said.

“Hey dude,” Dustin whispered back, tuning out the sound of Tori and Blake talking in the background. “Tori wanted me to let you know we’re gonna be a little late ‘cause Hunter’s talking to Shane about Parker being back in town.”

“Why are we whispering?” Cam asked, lowering his voice. “And who?”

“I don’t want to interrupt Tori talking with Blake, and his brother.”

“Ah...why is this Parker a problem?”

“‘Cause he’s grown man with a good job and a wife and _sweet_ house—”

“And Shane feels inadequate because between skateboarding and Ranger duty he’s not gonna be a married thirty year-old with a paycheck anytime soon,” Cam grumbled resignedly, the exasperation in his voice so clear that Dustin could just imagine him in Ninja Ops, facepalming at the keyboard in front of the monitors. “Figures.”

“Hey, rude!” Dustin hissed back. “Wouldn’t _you_ feel inadequate compared to that?

“Dustin, I’m the son of the Head of the Wind Ninja Academy and the heir to an immense Samurai family legacy that is so well hidden that, honestly, I’m _still_ trying to contact my relatives. I run the computer and security system for an approximate two hundred and fifty person academy, both of which I designed from scratch, and I already have my GED. I have my father’s height, my mother’s personality, two strains of stubbornness, and a dry sense of humor that would make George Carlin proud. _No_ _one_ will _ever_ think I’m inadequate for _anything_ ,” Cam replied. “The only issue I’ve ever had to prove is that I’m _more_ than just my parents’ son.”

“Who’s George Carlin?”

Cam sighed. “Cardinal Glick from Dogma.”

“Oh,” Dustin said softly before blurting out, “I’m guessing you’ve never been on a date either, have you.”

“That would lead to accusations of favoritism among the students, which is a bad thing.”

“ _Man_.”

“But if you’re about to tell me Shane and Hunter are getting it on instead of training—”

“What, no!” Dustin yelped, causing Tori and Blake to stop speaking. “They’re- they’re walking towards the van right now.”

“Oh good,” Cam said as Dustin, Tori, and Blake looked out the car window to see the two men walking towards them. “Now I can tell all of you that the Wind Ninja bikes will be ready for Tsunami Cycle practice in a week all at one time.”

“I- wait, _a week_?!” Dustin shouted just as Shane opened the door to Tori’s car, the outburst making him and Hunter freeze where they were.

“Dustin?” Hunter whispered softly.

“ _What did you do to my bike Cam_?!”

“Dustin, you can’t trick-ride your bike into combat without it needing repair _eventually_.”

 

_June 27, 2003, 11:26 AM_

Dustin was still staring forlornly at the wrecked Thunder Cycles as he helped Tori lay them down in the back of the Mobile Ops Command Center. “I’m so, _so_ sorry they tweaked you like that babes,” he whispered to them. “I swear, if I’d known it was gonna be _that_ ugly I-”

“That was productive,” Dustin heard Hunter say loudly from outside the center. “Now we’re all going to have to two-foot it.”

 _Two-foot...man, can today get any worse?_ Dustin thought as he walked down the ramp from the Command Center onto the grassy hillside below, just in time to hear Shane say that he had to go meet Parker at the skate park.

“Just be cool Shane,” Blake was telling him. “You haven't seen him in a while, maybe he’s changed?”

“Yeah,” Hunter added. “And if he hasn’t, just remember: he’s not Lothor. You’ve got this.”

“Thanks,” Shane replied, sounding grateful. “Catch you later.”

“Later bro,” Dustin called after him as Shane began to streak away. “So,” he added, turning to Hunter while Blake and Tori walked away from them and down the hillside, “how did the talk go?”

“The- oh, you mean back at Chargers?” Hunter asked, barely waiting for Dustin to nod in confirmation before continuing, “It went okay. He’s _really_ afraid of not making his folks proud.”

“Yeah, and it’s not easy when you’ve got a sibling who has.”

Hunter blinked. “Hey, you don’t think Blake—”

“Naw,” Dustin assured him. “I mean, Blake knows your folks are proud of you both.”

“Yeah?”

“Their ghosts kinda said that to your faces,” Dustin reminded him. “I was at the Mountain too. Remember?”

“Right,” Hunter said, sounding relieved. “Right, almost forgot. Man. That feels like a lifetime ago.”

“Course, even if they hadn’t, why wouldn’t they be? You both are amazing motocross Thunder Power Rangers. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Some of us are more proud than others.”

“True that. Hey,” Dustin asked suddenly, “you going to that by the way?”

“Going to what?”

“Pride. It’s coming up this Sunday.”

“...haven’t really thought about it, what with the impending alien invasion over our head,” Hunter said, looking at Dustin with a mild look of concern on his face. “Why, are you?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Dustin told him, kicking at a rock. “I mean, Oceanside and San Fran are both within streaking distance of Blue Bay Harbor, and I figure it’s something I should try at least once, you know? It’s almost a rite of passage.”

“I guess,” Hunter said slowly.

“You and Shane can join me if you like,” Dustin added.

Hunter blushed. “Pride’s a bit heavy-duty for a three-way first date,” he muttered.

“It doesn’t have to be date, though I won’t lie, I’d be up for that,” Dustin said. “But come on, it’s Pride.”

“It’s just a parade Dustin. Not like we’re getting into the clubs or anything.”

“Well yeah, but dude, the _colors_.”

Hunter laughed. “You know, you’re really good at this.”

“At what?”

“At making me feel like there’s nothing scary or wrong about a few thousand people staring at you on a date with a guy.”

“I’ve never been the Sensei’s son with an older sister that got rid of anyone she thought didn’t actually _want_ to date _me_ , if that’s what you mean,” Dustin stated. “But I’m pretty sure most people are staring at the floats?”

“I- hold up, Blake told you about that?” Hunter asked.

Dustin nodded. “Pretty bogus if you ask me” he said, shuffling his feet.

“Seriously bogus,” Hunter said. “Couldn’t even chance a kiss, and man, you have no idea—”

“Hey, was I your first?” Dustin interrupted.

“First?”

“First Kiss?”

“Yes? You- hey, what’s with the look?”

“What look?”

“That one,” Hunter said, pointing at Dustin’s face. “The smug one.”

“What can I say?” Dustin replied. “I’m feeling kinda proud right now.”

“Oh Dimitria, you _liked_ being my first,” Hunter said, sounding awestruck.

“...why would I not?” Dustin asked, surprised. “It was a really, _really_ good kiss. I mean, the circumstances were weird, but the kiss for sure wasn’t.”

“I always thought your first kiss is supposed to be your worst one,” Hunter said, laughing uncertainly.

“You could always kiss me or Shane and find out.”

“Dustin…”

“Hey wannabe lovebirds!” Blake shouted from the side of the hill.

“Hey _actual_ lovebirds, we’re talking here!” Hunter shouted back.

“I don’t know if you can hear it, but there’s an alert going off in the Command trailer,” Tori responded. “We gotta get out here!”

“Saved by the alien attack,” Dustin muttered as he and Hunter turned to walk back into the Command Center.

Hunter sighed. “Dustin, I- I’m only going to say this once,” Hunter said quickly in a low voice as they sat down at the console at the front of center. “I don’t know how to handle this, okay? I want you, I want Shane, but I’ve never been really _allowed_ to want anyone like this, and it’s not like there’s a lot of moto-folks who probably feel this way for me to ask, you know? So if I’m going…if I’m doing this wrong.”

“Hunter—”

“I’m sorry, but this...is what I’ve got,” Hunter finished quickly.

“Hunter, that’s the longest, most emotionally aware thing you’ve ever said to me,” Dustin said quietly back, hoping that Blake and Tori couldn’t hear them as they came up the ramp. “And I don’t mind waiting. Really. Again, we can go to Pride as boyfriends or just friends, I’m good either way. I just don’t want to be waiting to know what you want me to be _forever_.”

 

 

_June 27, 2003, 11:56 PM_

_Okay it’s official, today just_ blows _big time,_ Dustin thought bitterly. “Somebody catch me!” he shouted for what felt like the thousandth time.

Abstractly, Dustin was aware that it wasn’t real, that he wasn’t actually freefalling out into nothing with nobody to catch him, but it turned out that Cam hadn’t been kidding when he said Lothor’s latest alien, Isaac, used the collars he’d been launching at people to harness their deepest fears. Dustin had thought that meant “fed off their fears” like almost every other alien he’d read about in the Power Ranger comics.

Apparently, he’d been wrong, since the minute Dustin had been collared he’d been thrown into a bizarre, Crash-Bandicoot Tron knock-off cube realm where he’d been falling under a host of very watchful, unblinking sets of eyes.

“Okay, but seriously, someone! Grab me!” Dustin yelled. “I am an Earth Ninja, I do not like falling, _I seriously_ _do not fly well!_ ”

“Believe in yourself. You have nothing to fear.”

Dustin froze. “Sensei?” he asked confused.

“Believe in yourself. You have nothing to fear.”

“Oh yes I do! Yes, I really, _really_ do!” Dustin shouted back.

“Listen to Sensei guys: you have nothing to fear but fear itself!”

_Shane?_

“Sensei, is that you?” Dustin heard Tori call.

“I hear it too!” Dustin shouted, and suddenly he felt himself slam into the concrete ground, the collar around his neck making a small droning sound as it turned off. “Oh thank you, sweet, sweet earth,” Dustin murmured, ignoring the small headache the fall had given him and resting his head on the pavement.

“Okay guys, you may have broken Isaac's spell,” Cam’s voice said over the comms, “but the only way to get the collars off is to beat Isaac. Shane, use your zord to distract him until I get there. Tori, Dustin, ride the bikes into the belly of the beast. It's the only way to get Hunter and Blake.”

“They’re inside Isaac? Man, what happened?”

“We’re on it Cam,” Tori asked. “Dustin, let’s ride.”

“Sure,” Dustin said. “Where are our bikes again?”

“Man, that slam must’ve really gotten to you,” Tori said as she walked over to him. “I mean, they’re right where we left them.”

Dustin slowly pushed himself off the ground, looking around him to see that they hadn’t been relocated anywhere, but were standing in the same small plaza like half a dozen others in Blue Bay Harbor, the Tsunami cycles left right at the top of the curve. “It was less the slam and more the non-stop freefall,” he replied.

“Needing the dirt under your feet?”

“Oh big time. You?”

“Mine was barber scissors. Lots and lots of barber scissors.”

“Trying to cut your hair?”

“More like my _head_ off.”

“Oh yeah? You mean like in fourth grade when—”

“Less reliving my childhood trauma, more saving our boy- Rangers,” Tori said to him, walking towards the bikes.

“Nice save,” Dustin said as he followed her.

“Thanks.”

“You realize though we’re going to have to ride these bad boys off a skyscraper or something to get into that,” Dustin asked, pointing up towards where Shane was flying his zord around to distract Isaac, who had apparently grown nearly one hundred times as tall as he had been before while Dustin and Tori had been collared.

“I know. You know, I don’t know how many of these aliens we’ve fought,” Tori was saying as she sat down onto her bike, “but somehow the whole ‘supersize them with the Scroll of Empowerment” just feels...routine now, you know? Like, why not just let us beat them once and be done with it?”

“Yeah,” Dustin confirmed. “It’d be easier than trying to squeeze these into an elevator.”

 

 

_June 27, 2003, 12:17 PM_

“Ugh, what has this guy been eating?”

Dustin sniffed the air, trying not to think about how they had driven their bikes into a (thankfully empty and surprisingly large) office building elevator, taking it up to the roof, and then getting out and riding off the roof into Isaac’s mouth and into his stomach, a place that had padded walls and stuff dangling from its roof.

“Smells like chili dogs,” he said at last.

“ _That_ is _dis_ \- look, there they are!” Tori shouted, pointing across to where Dustin could see Blake and Hunter hanging from thick, plastic-looking cords.

“Hang on!” Dustin yelled at them as he and Tori ran over. “Ninja beams!”

At once he and Tori both shot, lasers ripping out from their morphers to cut the cords, causing the Thunder Rangers to fall onto the floor of Isaac’s stomach

“Guys!” Tori said as she ran towards Blake.

“Come on, wake up man,” Dustin said to Hunter as he picked him up.

“...Dustin?” Hunter murmured.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

“Blake, you alright?” Dustin heard Tori ask.

“I think so,” Blake replied.

“Guys,” Shane said, his voice sounding urgently over the comms. “You gotta get out of there.”

“You gotta get him to open his mouth!” Dustin replied.

“On it!”

“I’m guessing...we’re riding out?” Hunter asked as Dustin leaned him onto him, throwing one of Hunter’s arms over his shoulder to walk him out.

“Try not to think about the bike damage,” Dustin told him.

“I’m really, really not.”

“Mouth’s open!” Shane shouted.

“Let’s go!” Tori said.

 

 

_June 27, 2003, 3:08 PM_

“Wow, what is it with you reds and waterfalls?” Dustin asked as he walked towards Shane.

“Why do you want to know?” Shane asked, looking up from where he sat cross-legged on a stone by the banks of the waterfall outside Ninja Ops to see his friend walking towards him. The summer sun coupled with the waterfall’s mists had meant the trees around the waterfall were full of green leaves and humidity, scattering the golden afternoon sunlight around the Red Ranger idly

“Just trying to make the connection,” Dustin said as he sat down by the Red Ranger, leaning his back against the rock and letting his feet sprawl out on the shoreline, one toe barely tipping the water itself. “I mean, mostly we just walk right through this thing, you know? In fact,” Dustin thought aloud, “I think the last time I was out here without just walking through it was with Hunter after Toxipod, and you know how _that_ went.”

“Yeah I do,” Shane grumbled.

“But really, what’s up bro?” Dustin asked him after a moment.

Shane sighed. “You know how I kinda vanished after we took down Isaac?”

“Leaving the rest of us to talk with Sensei? I kinda noticed.”

“I went to talk with Parker.”

Dustin winced. “Not sure which one of us had it worse,” he admitted.

“It actually went pretty well. You know, for a couple of brothers who were collared by an alien fear ninja.”

“Parker got _collared_? Man, that--”

“He also saw me morph,” Shane went on. “And I may have told him that I’m gay.”

“Dude.”

“Yeah.”

“ _Dude_.”

“I know.”

“You just, what, went all in at one time?” Dustin said, flailing his arms out.

“It wasn’t like I planned to!” Shane protested. “It was just...when I got collared, all I could think about was my family being ashamed of me. Like, there I was, sitting in nothing but my boxers under a thousand eyes, and the _only_ thing that ran through my mind was how nothing I could do would ever make them proud.”

“Shane…”

“But then I realized I was _proud_ \- of my skating, of being a Ranger, of- and I was tired of having to hide it all, so when it was over I- I told Parker everything. I just...I had to, you know?” Shane asked, pausing for a second before adding, “It went pretty well, I think? I mean, he promised to keep the Rangering thing quiet, so there won’t be problem there.”

“And the liking dudes part?”

“Apparently he knows folks down in San Francisco.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, it’s not a lot, but at least he didn’t treat me like Tim von Werne or Jarret Berry.”

“Who?”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Shane said, before sighing. “It was enough I guess? Like, get this, he even invited me to stay over and go see Pride.”

“Yeah?”

Shane nodded. “I probably won’t go,” Shane continued. “But it was cool. I definitely didn’t expect it coming from him.”

“So if it went that well, why not go?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m thinking of streaking down,” Dustin explained. “We could meet up, go together. Even invited Hunter to join us, if he was up for it.”

“Bit heavy for a first date Dustin.”

“Ugh, now you sound like him,” Dustin grumbled, crossing his arms. “We could just go as bros. I mean, I’m not saying we should go down and get _laid_ or something, even though we can legally now.”

“Huh?”

“Lawrence v Texas man,” Dustin said, leaning his head back for a moment to look at Shane, who was looking back with a shocked expression on his face. “Didn’t you hear Tori’s dad cover it? Supreme Court totally struck down sodomy laws yesterday. We can get laid.”

“Pride is going to be _insane_ ,” Shane whispered slowly. “Like, the _colors_ alone man--”

“That’s what I said!” Dustin said. “So let’s do it. Let’s go to Pride. We can celebrate you coming out to Parker. If you’re up for it, I mean.”

“I-okay,” Shane stammered. “I...we can stay with Parker, maybe make a short trip out of it. It’s not like we can’t streak back if there’s trouble.”

“Aw yeah,” Dustin agreed. “We can celebrate without fear. Bro, this is going to be _righteous._ ”

“Yeah-yeah it is,” Shane said, grinning. “Man, I’m going to Pride. Going to make seeing all the skateboarders back here feel like such a letdown.”

“You can always come with me to convince Cam that we need hangout with—”

“Dustin, you’re not convincing Cam to summon the Mammoth One for fun times.”

“Worth a shot.”

“So we’re doing pride,” Shane repeated. “Cool.”

“I did also invite Hunter,” Dustin said.

“…I won’t lie, it be awesome if he came with—“

“So dude, let’s convince Hunter to come with. Two Reds and a Yellow, together at last.”

“ _Bro_ —”

“Nope, we’re taking him, I don’t even care if he’s dating us. We gotta go big.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Now I’m really glad I told Parker about that.”

Dustin blinked. “You told tell Parker that we--”

“I didn’t want him to be all, ‘why are you dating some motocrosser and _Dustin?’,_ so I told him. _”_

“ _Shane_!”

“And he was cool with that too.”

“Parker...really?”

“Friends in San Fran man,” Shane said. “Apparently they’re into some interesting stuff there.”

“Wow,” Dustin said. “Who knew Parker would be so cool with all of it.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking it had to do with being collared, because he really wanted to get to know me more when it came off. We even went skateboarding for a bit.”

“No way!”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “He was _so_ _bad_ at it.”

“Nice,” Dustin laughed, before saying more seriously. “Wish we had those friends of his up here in Blue Bay Harbor though. It’d probably make things easier.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, shifting so that he could lay out on the rock, his feet hanging on the edge away from Dustin. “I mean, I’m not looking forward to explaining this at the track or to the boarders.”

“Leave that to me man,” Dustin said. “I’ve got plans.”

“You do?”

“Who better to deal with hostile boarders than a biker?” Dustin pointed out. “Trust me, no friend or boyfriend of mine is going to have to take on their lame ways alone.”

Shane laughed. “You know,” he said, “you’re an awesome friend, and if we do wind up dating, I think I’m going to like dating you and Hunter.”

Dustin grinned. “Right back at ya,” he said, before adding, “hey Shane?”

“Yeah?”

“Boyfriends, you know, do stuff together.”

“Yeah I know.”

“But we’ve never- you know—”

Shane leaned onto his shoulder to look down at Dustin. “It’s been a long day man,” Shane said. “Just spit it out.”

“I want to kiss you. Like, just to know how it feels,” he hurriedly continued. “Cause we’ve been friends forever, and I don’t _want_ it to be weird, but it could be?”

“I—I think we’ve known each other long enough that it won’t be that weird, but it’s not going to be _great_ either bro,” Shane muttered. “It’s not like I’ve had practice or anything.”

“Then who better to be your first than me?” Dustin heard himself ask, trying not to wonder too hard at being the first kiss of both his boyfriends. “It’s like practice kissing. People still do that, right.”

“Beats me,” Shane replied hesitantly, “but- you really want to kiss me”

“Yes.”

“What if it’s bad?”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Then we don’t kiss? I don’t know man, I just know I’m feeling the love here.”

“Right, that’s- Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, let’s- let’s give this a go,” Shane murmured, before leaning down, the motion causing Dustin to tilt his head back to kiss him against the rock.

It wasn’t like kissing Hunter, Dustin thought absently. Hunter had been striking, a fierce, kiss full of all the emotion that the challenge of Toxipod had left him, one that had left Dustin gasping for air in the moonlight as the waterfall had poured past them.

Shane- Shane’s lips were moving softly, breezily against his, pleasant in the afternoon sun, and Dustin found himself reaching up to pull Shane further down, closer, as if he could ground him with a touch.

Suddenly there was a whimper.

“Hmm?” Shane murmured, breaking off the kiss. “Dust?”

“Wasn’t me,” Dustin whispered back, feeling himself smiling as he opened his eyes to look at Shane’s slightly flushed face. “I could do this all day.”

“I- I- wow,” the men heard a hoarse voice say, and turning his head Dustin saw Hunter standing to one side, eyes wide open. “I...wasn’t expecting to see that today.”

“Were you expecting to join in?” Dustin said, causing Shane to choke. ‘What, it’s not like we don‘t want him too,” he muttered to the Red Ranger.

“No, I was just- I finished giving Cam my report of what happened with Isaac and I figured I’d head home before Tori and Blake got up to something,” Hunter babbled. “I didn’t- I would- I mean, I’ve _dreamed_ of—”

“You’ve _dreamed_ of this?” Shane asked Hunter.

“Wow man,” Dustin said.

“Look I—”

“And you still _don’t_ know if you’d want in?”

“Oh I’d want in, I’d be lucky to be in,” Hunter babbled. “But I- look, Dustin knows I’m not good at this. It’s never been easy for me to date.”

“Seriously?” Shane asked Dustin. “Is he seriously going with dating was too hard for him?”

“Turns out Thunder Academy was totally no bueno about it because folks wanted to date him for being their Sensei’s son,” Dustin replied.

“How long have you known this?”

“They told me earlier today. Oh, and Leanne? Turns out she’s his older sister.”

“Yeah, I’m caught up on that, we talked about it earlier at Storm Chargers,” Shane said.

“Oh good,” Dustin said to him, before gesturing to Hunter to carry on.

“Anyway,” Hunter continued, his eyes darting worriedly between the other two men. “My main big hang up is just, it’s all new for me, and I am- I was afraid, of it? But I had a lot of time to think about my life choices when I was trapped in Isaac’s stomach, okay, and—”

“You realized you shouldn’t be afraid,” Shane finished, “but you should be proud of yourself, and so you want ask us out.”

“Well, yeah,” Hunter said, blinking. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Shane replied.

“I- so, yeah, I mean, I didn’t expect to run into you two making out like that, I was planning on waiting until Dustin got back from Pride, cause that seems a little big for three guys—”

“Shane’s brother Parker is willing to put us up, and he’s in the know,” Dustin told him.

Hunter smiled at Shane. “Yeah?”

Shane nodded. “Yeah. You were right, it turns out he’s not the worst big brother in the world.”

“Cool. Glad it all worked out, “Hunter said.

 _Dude,_ Dustin thought to himself as the Red and Crimson Ranger looked at each other. _Lothor totally wing-ninjaed me with an evil space alien by accident. This is awesome!_

“So you going to get over here and kiss Shane or what?” Dustin heard himself say aloud.

“What?” Hunter asked him.

“Well you’ve kissed me, and I’ve kissed Shane,” Dustin teased. “Seems to me someone owes somebody a kiss.”

“For months,” Shane grumbled. “I want that written down somewhere, by the way.”

“Oh believe me, I’m sure Blake’s been counting the days,” Dustin teased, watching as Hunter walked over, the edges of his ninja uniform tugging against the grass as he went.

“For months,” Hunter confirmed. “That’s a lot of time to catch up on.”

“Better get started now,” Shane teased.

“Yeah. Here, I’ll move over, I want to see this,” Dustin said, causing the other two to laugh.

And his boyfriends began to kiss each other by the banks of the Nina Ops waterfall, Dustin found himself thinking that maybe, finally, _finally,_ things were starting to look up.


	24. Chapter XVIII: A Warm Wind Stirring

_“A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.”_

  * Rita Mae Brown



 

 

_July 5, 2003, 8:52 AM_

“You're not supposed to watch the Super-Cross Dustin, that's why it’s called roughing it,” Shane heard Tori say as he walked out of Storm Chargers, a small portable generator in his arms, towards where her van was parked.

“If man was meant to rough it, why would he invent this?” Shane replied to her as he shoved the generator into the back of her truck.

“Just get in the van before I change my mind.”

Dustin grinned at Shane. “Dude, this is gonna be awesome,” he whispered as Tori went inside to get Hunter and Blake. “A whole weekend camping, just us guys.”

“Minus Cam,” Shane couldn’t help pointing out.

Dustin had come up with the idea of going camping out at the Harbor Pines Campground almost from the second he, Shane, and Hunter had gotten back from San Francisco, but getting the other Rangers on board had been a struggle. Blake had said no because he didn’t want to be a fourth wheel, only agreeing after Hunter and Dustin had promised to rein in anything too love-birdy around him (which, Shane knew, was partly why the TV was coming). Tori had also refused, saying that— as much as she loved her boyfriend— she wasn’t ready to spend the night roughing it with him in a tent on a “guy’s night trip,” something none of them had been able to talk her out of.

Cam, strangely enough, hadn’t been a problem: he’d agreed almost immediately, but had wound up backing out at the last minute saying he’d still be needed at Ninja Ops if only to look after his dad, despite Shane trying to reassure him that CyberCam could probably handle everything for a day.

“Hey,” Dustin said, kissing Shane on the cheek. “You did try.”

Shane felt himself blush. _Man, I thought I’d be over the PDA by now after Pride_ , he thought to himself.

“Thanks for giving us a ride Tori,” Blake said, walking past him and Dustin to hop into the front of the van with Tori, the words causing Shane to look up as the Blue Ranger walked by.

“Don’t mention it,” Tori replied. “Besides, this way I know where to find you guys when it all goes horribly wrong.”

“Come on, we’re highly trained ninjas,” Blake said. “What could _possibly_ go wrong?”

“Hey,” Hunter said quietly, drawing Shane’s attention. The Crimson Ranger was standing behind him, looking at Shane sleepily. “Anyway I can—”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” Shane replied, moving out of the way so that Hunter could thrust what looked like a few sleeping bags into the back of the van before locking the trunk door.

“Hey,” Dustin said, reaching out to hug Hunter. “Look at you.”

“What?” Hunter asked as he let go of the hug to pull at his shirt. “Is it lame? It is, isn’t it?”

“No! No, you- you look good.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” Shane whispered, agreeing with Dustin that the sight of Hunter in olive cargos and a dusty trucker cap was strangely compelling. “Going to make riding in the back with you really hard.”

Hunter smiled. “I- we should probably get in that thing,” he said, gesturing towards the van.

“Lover boys, you’re wasting daylight!” Tori shouted from the front. “Are you getting in or not?”

“Looks like you’re right,” Shane said.

 

 

_July 5, 2018, 9:29 AM_

“Have you guys ever wondered why the sky is blue and not see through?” Dustin asked as he looked out the back window of the van.

Shane snorted. Tori had been driving for close to thirty minutes, and with an empty road, no alien attacks, and even Blake’s attempt at talking about surfing with Tori exhausted, they had just started to fall into the kind of silence that was comfortable to Shane.

“I mean, it’s just _air_ ,” Dustin was saying. “Shouldn’t it be see through? You’ve never wondered about that?”

But that was apparently not so comfortable for Dustin.

“Ah, no, not me,” Hunter said, leaning over Dustin to look out the window himself.

“How about you Shane?” Dustin asked. “You’re the air guy.”

Shane shook his head. “Dude, I don't worry about what color's the dirt on the _ground_ , and I crash into that a whole lot more often,” he teased, the remark making Blake and Hunter laugh.

“Okay, I was just asking,” Dustin said sheepishly. “You know my mind wanders. You remember the sheriff?”

“Oh man,” Hunter said laughing.

“The what?” Tori asked.

“Pride thing,” Shane told her as he remembered.

 

[“ _Dude, look at the sheriff!” Dustin shouted, his hand flying out to gesture at a heavy-set man with silver hair in a sheriff’s uniform who was marching in the road towards them, holding in his hand the hand of a somewhat younger, bearded, shirtless man that waved as they walked past._

_“I am looking!” Shane said back. “And we’re, like, three inches apart, you don’t have to shout. Right Hunter?”_

_“Right,” Hunter replied, the smile on his face stretching the rainbow one of the street vendors had painted onto his face. “Though not gonna lie, kinda looking at the guy standing next to him a bit more. Kinda surprised you’re not.”_

_“Why would I? Dustin asked, waving a small flag at the pair walking by just as an announcement come over a loud speaker identifying them as Deputy Kevin Heuer and Mike Sousa. “I mean, he’s got some muscle, but Shane’s buffer than both of them, especially that bear, and its way more righteous to look at Shane.”_

_“…you mean the sheriff, right?” Shane said._

_“Bro, don’t pretend you don’t know the slang or that we love looking at you,” Hunter teased, pinching Shane’s cheeks as he spoke._

_“I’ve been hit on and glittered, but slang’s still new,” Shane grumbled. “Not like we hear it much back in Blue Bay Harbor.”_

_“Bear. Large, kinda hairy, mostly cuddly until you get them mad,” Dustin said._

_“Gotcha.”_

_“In fact, a lot of us get animals. Hey, you think our Ninja animals mean anything?” Dustin asked suddenly._

_“Well, you’re a lion and roaring, so…”_

_“Yeah,” Dustin said, slinging an arm around Shane’s waist. “And you’re definitely as free as a bird.”_

_“First person to make a beetle joke is getting tackled,” Hunter warned._

_Shane and Dustin looked at each other._

_“Beetlejuice?” Dustin said._

_“Beetlejuice,” Shane confirmed._

_“Oh come on!” Hunter said. “You really don’t think I’ll tackle you both?”_

_“Wonder if we can get that sheriff to throw us his cuffs. Might make- what? What?” Dustin asked as Shane broke out laughing.]_

“Dustin’s mind is a mysterious thing,” Hunter confirmed.

“You know, you never did tell us how things went down at Pride,” Tori pointed out.

Shane watched as Blake shifted in his seat to look at Tori horrified. “It’s…it was a thing that happened? I dunno, I was distracted by everything going on and by, well—“

“By us,” Hunter said. “We were definitely distracting.”

“Ugh,” Blake said. “Please stop.”

“And I didn’t think your boyfriend wanted to hear about his brother’s love life,” Shane replied.

“Yeah, please no,” Blake said. “Please.”

“Oh come on Blake, you don’t want to know what your brother got up to—”

“No. I know the _who_ he got up to, and that’s _way_ more than enough.”

“It was sweet and sick Tor,” Dustin told her. “I’m getting the pics back in a couple days, if you want to see them.”

“Thank you Dustin,” Tori said from the front, and consequently not seeing the frantic looks Shane knew he and Hunter were sporting. “I’m glad _someone_ is willing to share something about that trip.”

“Pics Dust?” Hunter asked.

“Don’t worry,” Dustin said, kissing Hunter on the cheek. “It’s only the PG stuff. Like, the photos we took outside the movie theater on our way in to see Curse of the Black Pearl.”

“Thank Kendrix,” Shane muttered.

“Dude, did you just say thank Kendrix?” Blake asked.

“You got a problem with Kendrix?” Tori asked.

“No,” Blake told his girlfriend, “I just- who swears by her?”

“Shane does,” Dustin said. “And trust me, you don’t want to know what he used to say.”

“Well _now_ I do. What—”

“Oh, this doesn’t look good,” Tori said, pointing in front of her to where a young woman dressed in camping gear was trying to flag their van down.

“Drive by Tor,” Shane warned, leaning forward to get a good look from the back seat.

“Shane, we can’t just drive by and leave her!”

“I dunno,” Dustin said, glancing at Shane. “The last time we stopped by the side of the road our school got sucked into space.”

 

 

_July 5, 2018, 11:11 AM_

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me! This isn't camping, this is a resort,” Shane heard Tori say from outside the tent. “All you need is a waterslide and a luau. What are you gonna do next, watch Lollapalooza too?”

“They don’t broadcast that Tori,” Dustin replied.

Shane shook his head. It had taken a lot to get the camp set up as tired as they had all been after what had turned out to be a Kelzack ambush— Blake spending the entire time venting to Tori about fighting a Kelzack while dangling from a cord of rock-climbers rope— but the camp _had_ gotten set up nicely. The event tent Dustin had packed was huge, its green and purple awnings hanging lazily down over its frame to mark off the large amount of space that Hunter had thrown the sleeping bags in.

_And oh are they comfy to lie down on,_ Shane thought to himself from where he had stretched out. Blake, Dustin, and Hunter had set-up the beach chairs and the TV Dustin had packed to watch the Super-Cross, and so he’d taken the opportunity to try to unwind a little from the ambush himself.

“Hello? Hello?”

Shane looked up to see Hunter walk in. “You good?” he asked the other man.

Hunter shrugged. “Yeah, I just thought I’d try to get some pizza out here,” he said, waving the cellphone he and Blake had finally managed to save up for in front of Shane.

Shane laughed. “Dude, we’re, like, forty minutes from town. You’re not getting pizza out here,” he pointed out. “Not unless you’re willing to try to convince Cam to make it for us.”

“He’d probably make us something really high-tech,” Hunter said. “None of that DiGiorno stuff.”

“You know it.”

“…it seriously bugs you he isn’t out here, doesn’t it,” Hunter asked after a moment, sitting down next to Shane.

“I just think it’s lame that all of us are getting a day off but not him,” Shane told his boyfriend.

“You ever think us being out here _is_ his day off?”

Shane smiled and, resisting the urge to glance around, leaned over to peck Hunter on the lips. “I’m just saying I wanted to share the happy with him too, that’s all,” he said softly. “He’s gotta be lonely at Ninja Ops with just his dad and his own cyber self to talk with.”

“Babe, he’s fine,” Hunter murmured, resting his forehead for second against Shane’s. “If Cam wanted to be here, he would be.”

“I know, I know.”

Hunter smirked. “So,” he said, pulling his head away. “I’m guessing we better do burgers instead?”

Shane chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, “though keep Dustin away from the grill unless you want it to get creative.”

“Blake’s the griller in the family, he can do it.”

“Right on.”

“You know, you could come out and check out the Super-Cross with us,” Hunter said as he got up to exit the tent. “Might do you some good.”

“Be more fun to hear about it from you and Dust later.”

“Cool,” Hunter said. “Well, see you around the grill?”

“See you,” Shane said as the other man walked out.

“Hey Shane, Tori’s heading out!” Dustin called a moment later.

_Guess I’m coming out of here after all,_ Shane thought, getting to his feet.

“I’ll be back to pick you guys up the day after tomorrow,” Tori was saying as Shane came out of the tent to find her already in her truck. “Bye!”

“See ya Tor!” Shane shouted after her, watching as Tori started to drive away.

“Is it just me, or is the van not moving?” Hunter asked after they had stood there a while.

“Maybe she changed her mind?” Blake said hopefully.

“Bro, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“That’s why,” Shane said, pointing to a mud puddle that seemed to be placed conveniently under one of the truck’s rear tires.

“Wow, way to dash my hopes there,” Blake muttered.

“Guys,” Tori eventually called from the front of the truck, sticking an arm out the window to point to the back tire of her van. “A little help here?”

 

 

_July 5, 2018, 11:39 AM_

“Maybe Tori’s van is cursed,” Hunter muttered to Shane.

“That would explain a lot.”

“Yeah…think we can get her to douse it with holy water or something?”

“I don’t think Water Ninjas have a blessing technique,” Dustin said thoughtfully, “and I am so far away from knowing the Earth Ninja one.”

“Pretty sure Tori would be too, so if you find any pre-made holy water, let me know,” Shane added as they walked towards camp. The attempt to get Tori’s van moving had ended with him, Hunter, Dustin, and Blake drenched in squishy mud and their generator taken out. And since there wasn’t exactly a stream nearby, this had meant having to take out a couple jerry cans of water that Shane had packed (thinking, fortunately, that they wouldn’t want to streak in the morning to the camp showers), and pouring it over each other until they could get everything clean.

For Shane, this had meant walking with Dustin into a part of the nearby woods and watching his boyfriend strip before carefully pouring water over him so that Dustin could use his ninja powers combined with the water to sluice off the mud. That would’ve been okay, except when he finally had to pause and ask Shane to help him get his hair clean, bringing Shane very close to a very naked boyfriend. And when Dustin was clean it was Shane’s turn, doing his best to clean off with the water and Dustin’s earth skills, the maneuver making it feel to Shane like he was being petted really aggressively.

It had taken all of Shane’s control to not react to him and his boyfriend being _way_ more naked earlier in the morning than Shane had expected, and by the time Shane was using his own ninja skills to blow them drying, he couldn’t _wait_ to put on clean clothes. It was the most physically intimate thing they’d done together in the week since they’d started dating— Shane had firmly said no to sharing showers at his brother’s, not wanting to wig Parker out any more than they probably— but between the mud, the dirty water, and the ninja’d caresses Shane hadn’t gotten to enjoy the closeness of it all.

Now walking back to the camp with Dustin and an empty jerry can, Shane found himself trying to imagine how Hunter had felt doing it with Blake.

“Man, I haven’t had that much mud in my eyes since my tear-offs failed,” Dustin grumbled as the male rangers walked into camp.

“Guys, I’m so sorry about your generator,” Tori said as they came into sight of the camp.

“It’s okay,” Shane told her, resisting the urge to repeat Hunter’s suggestion. “These things happen.”

“How was the shower?”

“…Refreshing.”

“But cold would be more accurate,” Hunter said tensely, looking pointedly away from Blake. “Really, really _cold_.”

Tori sighed. “Well I know this doesn't exactly make it up to you, but your burgers are on the grill and your sodas getting cold,” she said, gesturing towards where she had apparently set up the grill.

“Tori, you cooked for us?” Dustin asked, sounding shocked as Blake ran over to open the grill.

“Yes?”

“But you never cook for us! Not even after that cooking demo.”

“So you’d better enjoy me being _kind_ ,” Tori warned.

“Oh yeah,” Blake said loudly from the grill. “You’re so forgiven.”

Suddenly a blast of light came down, shooting straight into the woods with a loud thud.

_Oh come on,_ Shane thought as he looked at Tori. “Guess the burgers will have to wait,” he told her.

 

 

_July 5, 2018, 1:12 PM_

“Man, I don’t know if I can just sit back and _relax_ after all this stuff,” Shane huffed. “I just wanted to chill out, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Dustin said to him as they, Blake, and Hunter walked down the hiking trail away from where they’d had to fight _yet another_ attempt at a zord battle, this time having Zurgane pilot an evil megazord all of his own-- which had been seriously irritating to Shane since he could’ve _sworn_ they’d already defeated him. It had taken their combined energy to wield the megazord and repel him, but it had let Shane feeling on edge and had prompted Tori to announce that she was heading back to Ninja Ops to see if she and Cam could figure out why the aliens were attacking.

Shane, for his part, had felt too tired to streak, after the battle, and from how fast the other men had agreed to it, Shane was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one.

“I for one can’t wait to hit the grill,” Dustin continued. “Cheeseburgers here I come!”

“Tell me you brought pickles,” Blake said suddenly to Hunter. “I can’t do cheeseburgers without those.”

“Don’t worry, I brought them,” Hunter reassured his brother. “We’ll be eating in style.”

“Aw yeah, we’re just _seconds_ away from real food,” Shane said as the campsite came into view. “And it’ll taste—oh, _what_?!”

“Dude, this is bogus!” Dustin shouted as they came closer to the campsite, only to find that in their absence _something_ had wrecked it. The chairs had been thrown, the TV destroyed, and the scent of charred food remains hovered over the tattered remains of the grill.”

“This can’t be happening,” Blake said as he moved to set some of the chairs back into position, glaring angrily at the destroyed TV. “Seriously, what _is_ this day?”

“ _Okay_ , that’s it,” Dustin said throwing his hands in the air. “Let’s leave Mother Nature to the birds. I say we bag it and go find some greasy fast food.”

“Oh sure, let’s all take the car,” Shane said, gesturing to the empty space where Tori’s van used to be, the Blue Ranger having apparently streaked over and driven it away after their last battle.

“We’re stuck, stranded, and grounded,” Hunter told them, sounding anxious. “I feel like we’re the cast of Survivor.”

“Hey, at least we’re not on an island like Toxipod’s again,” Blake pointed out to his brother. “But yeah, this whole trip is turning out to be one bad idea.”

“I agree, and it was my idea in the first place,” Dustin said. “Let’s just, I dunno, streak out of here? I mean, I’m going to be _majorly_ wiped afterwards, but—”

“Oh come on guys we’re _ninjas_!” Shane shouted. “Like the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

“I didn’t see any lemon trees around here,” Dustin grumbled.

Shane sighed. “It’s a _saying_ ,” he muttered, slowly dragging his palm over his face, before letting it drop low enough for him to gesture around him. “Let's see what grows around here. Come on guys, spread out,” Shane continued. “Nobody comes back without any food.”

“You _had_ say to leave nature to the birds, didn’t you Dustin,” Blake said as he headed towards the tent and picked up what looked to Shane like one of the crates they’d been using as a footstool.

“Yeah I did,” Dustin said. “And it looks like that was a good call.

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re dating that bird.”

“Excuse you, so am I,” Hunter pointed out, “and you don’t see me jumping for joy here.”

“Guys, it’s Cam,” a voice said suddenly over all of the male Rangers’ morphers. “Sorry to tell you this, but we’ve got another problem on the way. I’ll send the coordinates to you shortly.”

“On our way,” Shane said firmly.

“Dude, I’m telling you,” Hunter said wearily into the quiet following Shane’s words. “Survivor. We’re the cast of it.”

“We’re going to make it,” Dustin told his boyfriend. “And when it’ all over? I’m taking a nap in that tent.”

“Oh dude, _yes_ ,” Blake said exhaustedly. “Naptime for _everyone_.”

“Then let’s go kick evil space alien ninja butt,” Shane confirmed, “and return back to rest the sleep of champions.”

 


	25. Chapter XIX: That Cold, Black Cloud

_“And here again is a foreshadowing—the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it.”_

  * Marilynne Robinson, _Housekeeping_



 

 

_July 15, 2003, 1:52 PM_

_This feels good_ , Hunter thought to himself as he rode his motorcycle along Route 299. Kelly had ordered everyone off the track and out of _Storm Chargers_ , saying she didn’t want all of them burned out with store-work and riding sessions before the preparations for next weekend’s annual motocross competition got hardcore, and so while Blake had gone to see Tori at the beach, Hunter had chosen to go for a ride.

He had known he’d made the right decision once he’d started out. The day had turned out to be a sunnily bright and startlingly non-humid one in Blue Bay Harbor, the kind that would mean tons of people trying to head out to spend time by the Harbor itself. The beach would’ve been crowded, making staying inside the Thunder Shack pointless with all the noise echoing up to it, and downtown Blue Bay wouldn’t’ve been any better. _Dustin’s probably shoved in at the skate park with Shane,_ Hunter thought to himself. _Much better to be out here, riding gear on, and the sun on my face._

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Dustin and Shane, it was just... he’d spent Pride with them. They’d spent the Fourth of July watching the Blue Bay Harbor Counsel launch fireworks offshore over the harbor on a “double” date with Blake and Tori on a “double” date. _That_ was followed by the disastrous attempt at a campout the day after that.

It was all a little clustering.

“Especially that lame campout,” Hunter grumbled to himself as he leaned into a turn.

Not that it had started that way. Being between Shane and Dustin in the backseat of Tori’s van, snuggling and bantering next to them, had felt righteous. At first he’d even liked the camp itself, but between the multiple fights they’d all been too wiped to do much camping: Blake had even headed home after taking a nap, leaving Dustin, Shane, and Hunter alone that night.

_That would’ve been awesome_ , Hunter admitted to himself, remembering how good play-sparing with his boyfriends without someone making fun of them had felt, or how nice it had been to pool the sleeping bags together, making one giant bed for the three of them. He and Dustin had wound up taking shameless advantage of Shane‘s tendency to sleep on his back to sprawl out on opposite sides of their boyfriend’s chest, which had felt _really_ good to Hunter.

_Yeah, it would’ve been awesome,_ Hunter thought to himself. _If only I had woken up hard_.

Not that Hunter could’ve helped it. He’d bet even _Cam_ would’ve woken up hard at the sight of Shane Clark, in thin, red boxers, running a hand up and down Dustin’s bare back, the hand resting for a few precious moments against the tip of Dustin’s white briefs while Dustin sleepily leaned into the touch. His boyfriends had looked so _good_ , and had felt so warm, and in the morning forest air had somehow even managed to smell like pine and citrus, like somehow it was Christmas in July.

It was _still_ enough of a sight that Hunter felt himself gripping onto his motorcycle’s handles tighter as he remembered it, remembered wanting to reach over and pull Dustin’s smooth, lean body against him, maybe trade kisses between him and Shane while Hunter reached down and—

_“_ Focus _,_ Hunter,” he gritted out, looking down the road to see the spot he’d been hoping to drive out to coming into view.

The whole thing had been a glorious view, but it had only lasted a few moments before Shane and Dustin had slowly woken up, Shane blinking his eyes to gaze at Hunter while Dustin slowly pushed himself up and off the ground. The two of them— apparently not as used to Hunter to waking up fast, a habit he knew Sensei Oromino had said started shortly after his parents’ death— had stumbled off into the woods, leaving Hunter to watch them walk off (Dustin slightly more clumsily than Shane) while he was still reclining between the sleeping bags and slightly aching.

It had been a slow, sobering moment, and they had returned to see Hunter dressed and the campsite mostly packed, with just a spare change of clothes left out for them to put on, something they’d managed to do in what (to Hunter) had felt like an awkward silence just moments before Tori’s van had come into view.

 

[If Hunter had noticed that Dustin’s briefs were less tented upon his return, well, there was no way he could bring that up without it getting _more_ awkward either.]

 

And ever since then, for all their hanging out and touching and kissing, Hunter found himself trying to grapple with the fact that a part of him _very physically_ wanted to move past the platonic touch phase of their relationship in a way that he suspected neither Dustin nor Shane were ready for.

He thought anyway.

“I could be wrong though. I wonder if, if maybe you two will know,” he whispered as he reached where he’d been driving towards, parking his bike off the road before walking slightly down the hillside towards a large boulder. He’d just barely reached down to grab what he knew he’d hidden under it when he felt somebody put a hand on his shoulder.

“Lose something- ow!” the voice that was connected to the hand said as Hunter flipped it (and the body it was attached to, over his shoulder and onto the hillside.

“Oh, it’s you,” Hunter said in recognition when he’d turned, seeing that the body he’d thrown was Cam’s. “Sorry about that.”

“You’ve _really_ got to lay off the caffeine,” Cam grumbled as he accepted Hunter’s hand to pull himself back up.

“Never know when it’s a sneak-attack.”

“Lothor hasn’t been that sneaky since he tried to kill my mom,” Cam replied. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

“I have the day off, thought I’d go for a ride,” Hunter said quickly. “Course, I could ask you the same question.”

“Well, I 'm tracking an extensive radiation signal.”

“Shouldn’t you be morphed for that?”

Cam rolled his eyes. “I’ll have you know I can track radiation just fine in this,” he said, gesturing to the striped polo and jeans he wore. “Haven’t found out much yet though. You know anything about it?”

Hunter sighed. “Does it have something to do with this?” he asked, reaching down below the boulder.

“Some- is that Zurgane’s _sword_?” Cam asked as Hunter handed him what looked like the dark, black hilt of one of the alien’s blades.

“Yeah,” Hunter said, hoping that Cam was distracted enough not to notice him slip a small, leather pouch that he’d also picked up from beneath the boulder into his own pocked. “I found it out here. He wouldn't have left here without it.”

“Not alive anyway,” Cam corrected.

 

 

_July 15, 2003, 2:13 PM_

“It would appear that a power struggle is playing out in Lothor’s lair,” Sensei Watanabe stated bluntly.

Hunter found himself nodding in agreement along with other Rangers, who like Cam and Hunter had quickly changed into their ninja uniforms and streaked over to Ninja Ops to investigate Zurgane’s sword, Hunter leaving his bike behind on the road to follow after Cam. Dustin and Shane had come to stand next to him while Tori and Blake wound up sitting on the table around the laptop Cam had quickly set up on the Ninja Ops table, muttering about having found satellite footage of the area where Hunter’d found the sword.

The footage hadn’t been pretty. The video surveillance Cam had somehow managed to find of the area where Zurgane had gone down after they’d fought him during their camping trip showed Vexacus (who Shane hadn’t enjoyed seeing again) not-so-figuratively destroying Zurgane, something that only made sense if, as Sensei Watanabe said, there was a power grab happening among the alien generals.

“Not that I’m going to miss Zurgane,” Tori said, “but that’s bad, right?”

“Isn’t that a _good_ thing?” Dustin argued.” Maybe they'll just fight each other until no one's left!”

_I’d love that_ , Hunter thought, thinking over the few times anyone had had to fight any of the alien generals alone. _It’d be way easier if we only had to fight Kelzacks and low-level, super-sized evil alien foot soldiers all the time._

“That is possible Dustin, but I suspect Lothor has an even more sophisticated plot in mind,” Sensei Watanabe replied. “One that now requires we face our enemy proactively, and reinforce our ranks by rescuing all our fellow captured ninjas. In short, we must find a way to get onto Lothor's ship.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” Blake said. “Hunter and I tried sneaking on once, and we all know how that went.”

“And that’s _with_ access,” Cam added. “Lothor's ship is protected by a powerful energy field—”

“How does he know that?” Dustin whispered to Hunter.

“I- he’s _Cam_. It’s either a tech thing or a ninja thing,” Hunter murmured back.

“—if we can't break through, there's no way to get in,” Cam was saying.

“Can’t we just fire on it?” Shane asked. “I mean, I’m willing to try to blast them with—”

“Even if you could activate your Battlizer and somehow manage to generate a beam of pure fire in the vacuum of space, which I don’t even _want_ to know how you’d do,” Cam told the Red Ranger, “you wouldn’t be able to move since there’s _no air for you to fly around_.”

“I dunno man,” Dustin said, “an awful lot of Rangers have managed to maneuver—”

“Dustin, so help me, if you’re about to quote _Rangers in Outer Space—”_

“First off, it’s _in Space_ , and second—”

“What if we had one majorly strong laser cannon,” Hunter interrupted, absentmindedly noticing his fingers reaching into his back pocket. “Could we mount it on a Zord and use that?”

“If I put it on the Samurai Zord, maybe,” Cam conceded. “Why, do you have something we could use to make it?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said, pulling the pouch out of his pocket and opening it before the other Rangers. “I’ve got this.”

“Is that-” Tori began, hopping off the table to look more closely.

“The Gem of Souls,” Hunter finished for her.

“But I thought I dropped it into the ocean,” Cam said confusedly as he looked at the shards of the Gem gleaming green in Hunter’s hands.

“Dude, you’re not an old lady, and the Harbor’s not an ocean.”

“So what, you…went and fished out some of it?” Shane said, sounding concerned. “Can you even do that?”

“I—”

“Wait, we’ve got a scroll for this!” Dustin said. “Tori, Blake, help me find it?”

“Dustin, that’s really not needed,” Cam told them as the three of them ran over to the corner of Ninja Ops where the scroll-tower stood, Dustin and Tori quickly pulling themselves over the railing around its base while Blake waited below them along the part of the Ops wall the tower stood on.

“They washed up outside our house a couple days after Blake and I moved in,” Hunter told Shane and Cam as they looked. “I got them.”

“They- wait, Blake, did you _know_ about this?” Shane asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Blake said, glaring at his brother. “And that’s a _really_ long time to _lie_ to me.”

“I was gonna tell you, but the more time passed the harder it got,” Hunter said back defensively. “I’m sorry?”

“Where- you had them buried out with the sword, didn’t you,” Cam stated. “That’s why I got the weird radiation reading.”

Hunter nodded. “I guess me putting the sword shard there must’ve activated the Gems.”

“And why, again, do you have these?”

“I- I go out there every once in a while to see if they can help me contact my parents,” Hunter mumbled.

“Hunter…”

“I understand that sometimes your loss is hard to let go of easily,” Sensei Watanabe said suddenly from where he stood on the Ninja Ops table, his whiskers twitching as he spoke, “but what’s done is done. You can never go back in time—”

“Not without a scroll, right Cam?” Dustin asked.

“Dustin, please don’t interrupt my father when he’s trying to be emotionally supportive,” Cam said to the Yellow Ranger.

“I know my parents are gone, but I still _miss_ them,” Hunter told Sensei Watanabe. “There’s a lot I’ve never got to-to _know_ about them, or let them know about me. Sometimes it helps just to talk to the shards. It’s something, at least.”

“ _Bro_ ,” Blake said quietly.

“I should’ve told you I had them,” Hunter said to his brother, feeling how carefully the other Rangers were listening to them. “But I- at first I figured you’d want me to get rid of them again because of the Lothor thing, and then stuff got kinda busy between work and Rangering, and—”

“And now you wanna use them to bring them back,” Shane said into the silence that followed after the Crimson Ranger had trailed off.

Hunter turned to look at his boyfriend. “Yeah, I do.”

“Even if Lothor’s attack destroys the shards?”

“I- yeah,” Hunter sighed. “I mean, it’ll _royally_ _suck_ , but…but the ninjas on that ship? Someone’s missing each one of them too, and it's not too late for them.”

“In that case, give them to me,” Cam said, morphing as he spoke. “I’ll mount them on the Samurai Dragon Force vehicle, fly out into space, and break through Lothor's energy field. Once I've done that the rest of you should be able to teleport right onto the ship.”

“We’ll be standing by,” Tori told Cam, leaning over the railing balcony. “Be careful Cam.”

“You know, I’ve been a Ranger for months now, and everyone _still_ tells me to be careful,” Cam teased as he carefully grasped the last remaining shards of the Gem of Souls. “Why does everyone keep telling me that?”

 

 

_July 16, 2003, 9:34 AM_

“Bit early to be out here,” Cam said. “Though I’m guessing the lack of a bike means you streaked out this time?”

Hunter turned around from where he sat on the boulder. “Yeah I- ah- morning yourself,” he said, stifling a yawn. “How you holding up?”

“You mean, from my _failed_ attempt to rescue two academies worth of ninjas?” Cam asked as he moved to sit next to Hunter, causing the Crimson Ranger to shuffle over. “I’m okay. Annoyed, but okay.”

“Who’d have thought a giant alien robo-bird would attack at the same time?” Hunter huffed.

“Apparently Lothor.”

“Apparently.”

“You don’t have any more surprises buried under this thing by the way?” Cam said, pointing down at the boulder.

Hunter huffed. “Nope. No more swords or shards for us.”

“…Hey uh,” Cam said after a moment, “thanks for giving me the gem shards. I know how hard it must’ve been.”

“They weren't doing much good for me out here. Didn't do you much good either, in the end.”

Cam shook his head. “They did work- they got me onto Lothor’s ship,” he pointed out. “If it hadn’t been for Condor-tron and Lothor’s goons ambushing me at the same time, we might’ve gotten all those students free.”

Hunter looked up at the sky. “Think we’ll ever get back up there again?” he asked quietly.

“I promise we will.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Hunter said.

“Good,” Cam replied, and for a moment the two Rangers sat looking out across the hillside.

“So what else is going in the world of the Crimson Ranger?” Cam said at last.

“What makes you think something’s going on?”

Cam snorted. “Hunter, I may spend most of my life at Ninja Ops, but I’m not stupid,” Cam told him. “Anybody who comes all the way out here this early on a California summer morning wearing a fleece vest has stuff going on.”

“What, you don’t like it?” Hunter said, tugging at the black vest he had on. “I got from the backroom at Storm Chargers _._ I think I make it work.”

“I think it’s a heat hazard.”

“You’re one to talk. Do you ever wear anything besides that polo when you step out?”

Cam looked down at his green polo. “And risk you all confusing me with CyberCam again? Never,” Cam said, making Hunter laugh.

“For real though,” Hunter asked seriously. “What do you do all day?”

“Thought I’d asked what’s up with you first.”

“Okay, you tell me what’s up with you, I’ll tell you what’s up with me.”

Cam sighed. “Alright,” he began. “Well, my father’s been a guinea pig for five months now. The home— world, really— that I grew up in is currently suspended in a bubbly, foamy chandelier thing that looked like it came right out of a Bust-A-Move arcade game on an alien spaceship that’s somehow managing to orbit Earth without getting a single government agency to notice it. My uncle is technically not my uncle and evil, my cousins are _probably_ evil even though one of them has been sworn to be basically one friendship away from being good by two different Power Rangers. My days are pretty much an endless stream of helping my dad out in Ninja Ops and prepping for the future, repairing Power Rangers gear and equipment, and monitoring possible alien threats with CyberCam, who is not a great conversationalist, by the way. Then it’s training with you all outside, do any Rangering that needs to be done, before sneaking in some time reading in the evening or hanging outside in the giant pit of the former Ninja Academy I lived in.”

“Oh,” Cam added, as if it was an afterthought, “and of my five closest friends, two of them are coupled off and three of them are _tripled_ off, which definitely ends the months of irritating pining but pretty much ensures that I’ll be a spare wheel for someone eventually.”

“That…wow,” Hunter said after he had taken all of what Cam said in. “That’s really everything that’s up with you?”

“Sometimes I go skateboarding in the Academy pit since it’s basically a giant kidney bowl. And really, I do read a lot.”

“About what?”

“Mostly stuff about Samurai life that my mom left behind,” Cam told him. “Lately though I’ve lso been rereading some of the older Ranger reports to see if there’s any sign of what Lothor might be plotting to do now that he’s down at least _one_ general.”

“At _least_ one?”

“We know Zurgane was destroyed, but we haven’t seen Choobo in a long time,” Cam pointed out. “You gotta figure there has to be more than just two generals up there, so if one’s dead and one’s missing…”

“Then there’s gonna be at least one or two more going down pretty soon,” Hunter finished grimly.

“Then it’s save everybody time,” Cam said. “With any luck we’ll be able to beat Lothor and save everyone before the school year starts.”

“That would- hold up,” Hunter caught himself. “The _school year_?”

Cam turned his head, looking at Hunter carefully. “Yes?” he said. “You do remember that Shane, Dustin, Tori, and Blake all have senior year starting up next month?”

“Blake wouldn’t- I mean, I think he’s also doing the GED thing, like me. Or at least like I want to.”

“Like all proper Sensei sons do, but—”

“You took the GED too?” Hunter asked surprised. “I thought you just got through high school faster.”

“Can you really imagine my dad sitting in on a PTA meeting?” Cam replied. “Besides, there’s nothing in the public schools here that’s challenging enough for me anyhow.”

“Okay, fair, but- school,” Hunter said lamely. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“It’s definitely going to be something,” Cam told him. “I mean, the logistical planning alone is going to be messy. You know,” Cam clarified, seeing the look on Hunter’s face, “who’s going to college, who’s going to skip it and head straight to work, who’s going to become competitive athletes—”

“—but Rangering gets in the way of all of that,” Hunter interrupted.

Cam shrugged. “It may not, depending on how it all plays out. Again, if Lothor’s gone in a month it won’t at all.”

“Great,” Hunter said after a moment. “Now I can add impending life change conflict to my list of things to panic over.”

“You have a list already?”

Hunter sighed. “Cam, I’m an eighteen-year old with two dead and gone parents, one kidnapped adopted father, an adopted sister that lives seriously far away—”

“—does Leanne know about your boyfriends or Tori by the way?”

“—who I gotta _call to talk about my love life_ , and no roadmaps for how any of this is gonna go. Yeah, I’ve got a list.”

“Not too shabby. “As long as the body count stays alien, we’re good,” Cam replied.

“Thanks. I’m glad you approve of my teenage angst,” Hunter teased. “You know, maybe we can add some drama to yours if we found you someone to date. Save you from being the spare.”

“Don’t _even_ think about it.”

“What, you don’t wanna—?”

“Hunter, whoever I’d date is going to have to be deeply okay with me being a ninja, a samurai, and a Power Ranger,” Cam said firmly. “Given the odds of that, they’ll probably also have to be in it for the long haul, and therefore be okay with living on Ninja Academy grounds if and when I take over for my dad as Sensei. You’re not going to find someone like that near here anytime soon.”

Hunter huffed. “Too bad you couldn’t just date Shane, Dustin, and I,” he said. “You’d have no problems then.”

Cam hummed thoughtfully. “According to my mom’s writings, there _have_ been samurai families that were known to have polyamorous relationships in the distant past.”

“Seriously?” Hunter asked, staring at Cam in surprise. “Wait, your _mom_ has books about?”

“Yes, I- Tori actually suggested I do some digging, see if I could find out more about her side of my family,” Cam told him. “Turns out, the Watanabes are a pretty interesting group of people when it comes to our research interests.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. And for the record, the polyamory wasn’t common,” Cam continued. “You’re not going to find it listed on Wikipedia or anything, but. well. The Fire Samurais of the Shiba family, for example, were known for it, as were the Forest Samurais of the Jackson family.”

“The Jacksons? Like, Michael Jackson?”

“ _No_ , not the- I mean, okay, the current Jackson family actually does have a son who’s, like, a ten years younger than me named Mike, but that’s _not_ Michael Jackson of the Jackson Five, that’s- the musical group, seriously Hunter?”

“Hey, you gotta admit it’d explain a lot about how that moonwalk thing happened.”

“But- the point _is,”_ Cam said, “it could work, if there wasn’t just one tiny obstacle.”

“Which is?” Hunter asked curiously.

“I _like_ you all.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Cam, that’s being bisexual, Dustin’s—”

“No, Hunter, I mean, I _only like_ you all. Not _like_ like, singular like. The kind of like that makes you give something a thumbs up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’ve never…?”

“Never even wanted to. And I- I don’t know if there’s a neat label like gay or bi or straight for someone like me, but until I do? When I was in the past my mom said my grandfather used to joke that some people in our family were practically asexual like plants.”

“Dude, that’s—”

“And I looked _that_ up, and…the description doesn’t quite fit me?” Cam said, Hunter noting frustration in his voice. “I do, one day, want to be married, have kids. I’m not _against_ the idea of sex, even though I know it’s not something I’m into doing casually. But that’s all I can find out there right now.”

“Right now?”

Cam shrugged. “Maybe five years from now someone invents a label for people who only want sex with folks they have a deep emotional connection to and a whole new group of people starts writing stuff about it. I don’t know. What I do know though is that until I know how to describe this, to know what I’m looking for? I’m not planning on dating anyone, let alone dating any of you. I’m just not. I might look after you all with all the _focus_ of a lover if one of you _asks_ me to,” Cam added, “but that’s about all I’m comfortable giving right now.”

“Oh,” Hunter said. “That’s…”

“Yeah.”

“Ah.”

“Amazing how mature you can be when you have plenty of time to think about all of your life choices, repeatedly, isn’t it.”

“…Kinda?”

“Course, I’m sure that’s nothing on trying to figure out how to balance an X-sport star-crossed triad,” Cam joked.

“Ugh, tell me about,” Hunter groaned.

“How about telling me?”

‘Okay, you know what?” Hunter said. “I am. Let me tell you about the actual physical pain of what has to be the most awkward morning after in my life…”

 

 

_July 19, 2003, 3:23 PM_

“You put on a new air filter right?”

“Yeah.”

“Seal it so you won’t get dirt in your airbox?”

“Bro, I’m not an idiot,” Blake said as they walked towards the track, Kelly following close behind.

Hunter sighed. The Fifteenth Annual Blue Bay Motocross Competition had been a breeze for him and Blake, and ordinarily he’d be looking forward to them cleaning up the trophies. But as the announcer had made a point of saying all day, this year the competition was the final qualifying trials in California for the Thirty-First American Motorcyclist Associations National Championship, and every time he found himself remembering Cam asking about his plans for the fall, when everyone but him and Cam were going to be back in high school.

Going to Nationals— maybe even _winning_ at Nationals, though Hunter knew how rare it was for a rookie to do that— would probably get him signed, and then he’d be travelling on and off for the entire year. Not all of it, of course, but long enough (and with enough pay) that he wouldn’t be spending the year sidelined in a shack at the beach after Lothor’s attacks stopped.

Provided that they did.

“Okay, there are your bikes. You know the drill, ride ‘em and bag ‘em,” Kelly was saying, her words grabbing Hunter’s attention. “Speaking of, has anyone seen Dustin?”

“No,” Hunter said when she looked at him.

“Yeah, I thought he’d be here for sure,” Blake said, glancing at his brother.

Kelly groaned. “I better go and find him,” she said. “He’ll probably miss the start of his event if I don’t.”

“Wish him luck for us,” Hunter told her, once again finding himself happy that he was just a rider and not a trainer like Kelly. She’ had to spend the whole day trying to corral him, Blake, and Dustin armed with nothing more than a neon-yellow safety vest, a clipboard, and what he guessed was likely a caffeine induced determination to get them onto their bikes without interference.

It was effective, but training motocross riders wasn’t something Hunter saw himself doing one day.

“Yeah, same,” Blake added as she walked away, leaving them to mount their bikes and check that everything was ready for the start.

“Crazy, huh?” Hunter heard himself say once he started his bike and put into idle.

“Yeah, you’d think he’d be here to cheer you on at least.”

“Wha- no, not that.”

“You weren’t expecting Dustin to watch you right?”

“I mean, I figured he’d probably try to sneak in a view before his race, but- that’s not what I meant,” Hunter clarified. “I meant all this. The racing thing.”

Blake looked at his brother. “How come?” he said slowly.

“Well, even if one of us wins, it’s not like we can fly around the country racing.”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Dude, I just want to beat these clowns,” he said, gesturing with his thumb at the riders lined up on either side of them. “I do that, it’s all good.”

_You should want more than just that,_ Hunter thought to himself. “Well, don’t get too disappointed,” he said aloud.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not here to bore you,” Hunter replied challengingly. “I want to come in first.”

“Oh yeah. We may have come down as a team, but we’re still racing.”

“Fine by me.”

Hunter nodded quickly before putting on his helmet, just as the card indicating the start for the race shifted from a “2” to a “1,” before quickly changing onto its side.

Then came a buzzer sound, and Hunter felt his body automatically shift gears and floor it, launching his bike forward across the starting track.

Ordinarily, that was all Hunter was then aware of. Keeping a sense of how his bike was moving on the track had always been demanding for him, and there was only so much spare attention even a ninja could pay to his surroundings as they whipped by in a muddled blur of terrain, cheers, and spectator clothing while trying to move a metal object quickly without streaking it.

But this time he found himself thinking over Blake’s words, how he wasn’t thinking about whether he got to spend the next year travelling or not. In fact, Hunter found himself realizing as he turned, for all he and Blake lived around each other, they hadn’t really done much speaking about anything serious at all in the past month. Some of that he was sure was because they had both started relationships, but still. Shouldn’t brothers talk about stuff like that?

Suddenly a blue blur came up from Hunter’s left, a blur that Hunter realized was Blake.

_Dude, is he-_ damn _it!_ he thought, pulling his bike up the side of the track, a move that Hunter dimly heard the announcer comment on as one that put Blake in the lead. _Get your brain back on the bike Hunter!_

Throwing his attention back into the race turned out to be enough to stay in front of everyone except his brother, and Hunter found himself crossing the finish line a half-second after his brother.

“Aw yeah!” Hunter heard his brother shout.

_I just lost,_ Hunter thought as he pulled over, watching as Blake hopped off his bike, handing it to off to their pit crew before walking back to where Kelly had set up their team tent. _I won’t make Nationals_. _I won’t make Nationals?!_

Hunter felt himself flush with rage. _Okay, so I lose out on a long shot, big deal, I can handle that,_ he thought as he handed the pit crew his bike, the announcer committing that the freestyle demo portion of the competition was about to begin. _But to lose it to my_ kid brother _, that’s…that’s so not cool._

“You’re totally going to scratch your helmet bro,” Hunter heard Blake say as he reached the top and tore his helmet off, flinging it off onto the ground.

“What was that?! You totally high-sided me!”

“No I didn’t. You came onto me.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, that’s racing,” Blake said, Hunter watching as he turned to grab one of their water bottles off the collapsible table Kelly had set up in front of their tent. “You wanted to race, I was racing.”

“Do you realize this means I don’t make Nationals?”

“So what? You said you can’t go anyways.”

_That didn’t mean I didn’t want to,_ Hunter thought to himself, forcing himself to try to walk past Blake before he lashed out again.

“Hey, you know what I think?” Blake said suddenly. “I think it's because you got beat by your little brother. If it was any one of those guys it’d be a clean pass, but because it was me, you’re upset.”

Hunter paused to kick a chair, before walking on, barely hearing his brother reassure someone ( _probably Kelly_ ) that everything was alright.

 

 

_July 21, 2003, 9:47 AM_

“You know that Blake and Tori are probably talking about you right now?” Shane asked him.

Hunter snorted. “What’s he gonna say?” he asked, kicking his feet back on forth from where he and Shane sat on the back workshop counters at Storm Chargers. “He knows I’m right.”

“Just saying, you froze him out the whole weekend.”

“He totally stuffed me to the bird!”

“I don’t even know if I _wanna_ know what you just said,” Shane said carefully, “but unless I missed the return of Super Toxipod, I’m pretty sure we’re not in a state of nuclear winter.”

“Seriously,” Hunter asked his boyfriend flatly. “ _Seriously_?”

“Look, I'm not choosing between you two,” Shane told him. “Whatever it might've looked like, I'm sure he didn't mean to do it.”

“All I know is, there’s clean racing and dirty racing,” Hunter insisted, gesturing with his hands towards the lounge where his younger brother and Tori were sitting. “What he did was definitely dirty.”

“If you say so.”

“Ugh, my own boyfriend’s not siding with me,” Hunter grumbled. “Man, what _is_ my life?”

Shane laughed. “Hey, I get it. When my brother and I step to fight, look out,” he said. “And you should see the sparks that fly when Tori and her sister fight.”

“Tori has a sister?”

“Yeah.”

“She- since _when_?” Hunter asked.

“Since _ever_?”

“And you all just don’t talk about her?”

Shane shrugged. “She’s, like, fifteen years older than her, older even than Parker, and she lives out in Reefside, so she’s not around much,” he explained. “There’s not really much to say about her.”

“As an older brother I take offense to that.”

“Yeah, well, unless you go over there and apologize, there may not be much talking about _you_ from Blake anytime soon either.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Hunter grumbled. “But I’m not going to him first, no matter what.”

Shane sighed. “Maybe I should ask Cam to check the track to see if it’s cursed or something,” he grumbled aloud.

Hunter gave his boyfriend a look. “Why?”

“Dustin—”

“He- oh, man, I forget to ask Dustin how his race went!” Hunter said, slapping his forehead with his palm. “Did it go bad?”

“It didn’t go,” Shane told him.

“What.”

“Turned out he dropped out of the race and entered into the freestyle demo.”

“Dustin,” Hunter asked, trying to picture his other boyfriend flipping a motorcycle in the air. “Freestyled.”

“Right into the dirt.”

“Dude, there’s no way.”

“That’s what Kelly thought too,” Shane whispered, glancing around the store to see whether their boss was nearby. “But he did. I think he’s getting tired of racing, and just wants to hang around bikes, you know?”

Hunter nodded. “He definitely enjoys Tsunami Cycle practice way more than the race grinding practice we’ve been doing,” he said slowly. “I guess I could see it.”

_And it’d mean that he’d also be around more outside of school next year too,_ Hunter added to himself.

Just then their morphers buzzed.

“Hey my primary color dudes,” a voice like Cam said. “How’s it hanging?”

“CyberCam?” Hunter heard Tori ask, her voice speaking coming out of his morpher as she spoke on the comm-line. “What’s going on?”

“Boss-man just signed a package for you and the bros, dudette, and he’s setting it up on the DVD player as we speak, so he asked me to call you. Kinda righteous, huh?” CyberCam said.

“We’re on our way,” Shane spoke into his morpher.

“Right on,” CyberCam replied. “Look forward to chilling soon!”

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, he sounded kinda relieved to have someone to talk to besides Cam,” Shane told his boyfriend.

“I know Cam gets tired of him,” Hunter replied as the pair hopped off the counter.

“Huh,” Shane said, following Hunter out the front. “Wonder if _they_ ever give each other the silent treatment.”

“Why would they?” Hunter said just as he saw Blake come into sight, glaring at him like Hunter had cheated at Monopoly. “They’re not siblings.

 

 

_July 21, 2003 11:39 AM_

“Why didn't you duck?!”

“Me? You're the one with the leg controls!”

Hunter groaned in frustration. It had been annoying enough to get to Ninja Ops and discover Kapri had her own zord, one that (to Hunter) looked like a giant version of her dressed in a purple astronaut suit with a Batarang stuck on her head and basically tried to attack with alien cooties, as if he’d be scared of that after months of fighting. But then Kapri had knocked him and Blake offline and out onto the ground just by dodging a blast from the Wind Ninjas, a sloppy maneuver Hunter knew he and Blake would never have let hit them if they were talking with each other.

“Excuse me,” he heard Sensei Watanabe’s voice come over the comms from Ninja Ops. “What did we just discuss?”

“Sorry Sensei,” Hunter apologized, hearing Blake echo him as they remembered Sensei Watanabe telling them to put aside their conflicts for the moment in order to perform their Ranger duties. “It won’t happen again.”

“Sometimes I’m glad I’m an only child,” Cam said

“Hey, I—wait, who’s that?” Blake asked as two other megazords appeared on the field, Hunter hearing Shane echo the question from the other side of the field.

“Remember me?” a voice called out.

“You didn’t think I’d let Kapri get all the credit, now did you Rangers?”

“Okay, that second one was definitely Marah,” Tori said, “but who was that other one?”

“Shimazu,” Cam said, his voice sounding irritated. “I’d recognize his voice anywhere.”

“Dude, I thought my Mammoth One bro totally stampeded him!”

“Lothor must’ve done something to bring him back,” Cam said. “Also, the Mammoth One is not your bro.”

“Only because you don’t let us hang out more.”

“I’m not letting you _level a city block for funzies_ Dustin.”

“Guys, focus!” Hunter called out, seeing Marah blast the Wind Ninja Megazord onto the ground.

“We’re good!” Tori said. “I’m knocked off, but we’re good!”

“Right, that’s it,” Blake said. “Hunter, get us moving.”

“I am… hey, we’re back online!” Hunter said.

“ _Excellent_.”

“Tori, I've got something to even the odds,” Cam announced. “Standby, I'm on my way.”

“Tor, you sure you’re okay?” Blake asked as Hunter raised the Thunder Ninja Megazord from the ground.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Tori replied. “I had Cam make a few modifications to my zord after my whole dip into the alternate universe, it should be good.”

“Oh sure, Cam takes _her_ requests,” Dustin grumbled as Hunter saw Cam’s Samurai Star helicopter come into view. “Bet he’d let _Tori_ summon the Mammoth One. Hey, Tor—”

“No Dustin.”

“Oh, Come on!”

 

 

_July 21, 2003 8:22 PM_

“Hey man, good race,” Blake said to his brother. “You totally railed that last turn.”

Hunter smiled at his brother. The near miss at defeating Shimazu, Kapri, and Marah earlier in the day had been enough to make him and Blake start talking to each other. And watching Tori’s zord actually _bite_ Kapri’s in half before Tori actually summoned the Mammoth One for Cam (with Dustin complaining the entire time about how unfair it was that a Water Ninja got to summon it before he could), had taken long enough for Hunter to figure out how to ask for a rematch.

So later that day, after they’d finishing their shifts at Storm Chargers (and after Hunter had pulled Dustin aside in the backroom to show him how proud he was that Dustin was following his heart to freestyling), the Bradley Brothers had found themselves again at the track, doing a five lap race, with Hunter this time flying ahead to win.

“Yeah thanks,” Hunter replied, before adding. “Hey, you were totally right.”

“About what?” Blake asked innocently.

_Gonna make me say it, isn’t he._ “About what you said earlier,” Hunter said aloud. “You beat me fair and square. It’s hard to admit that you’re little bro does something better than you do.”

“Hey man, today I might be better, tomorrow? I may not be,” Blake pointed out. “But we’re always going to be bros. We always gotta remember that.”

“Yeah we do,” Hunter said. “Haven’t been good about that lately, have I,”

Blake shrugged. “We’re juggling bikes, boxes, and _really_ hot babes,” he said, winking at Hunter. “It’s been a busy month.”

“Not too busy for us to talk though.”

Blake laughed. “Man, what do you have to worry about? ‘Cause all I got is summer.”

“Fall.”

“Huh?”

Hunter sighed. “So I talked with Cam after the whole Gem of Souls thing—”

“They’re all gone now, right?” Blake interrupted.

“Yeah, they are.”

“’Cause honestly bro, necromancing our parents? Not something I’d have been down for.”

“It _wouldn’t_ have been _necro_ — _anyway_ ,” Hunter moved on as he followed Blake in pushing their bikes back down to the road outside the track, “he was saying he’s got a feeling that all the attacks might just wrap up before school starts again.”

“Yeah?”

Hunter nodded. “I mean, we’ve got two dead generals now,” he said, “and Marah and Kapri trying to fight in their place? They’ve gotta be running low on people.”

“Only a matter of time then,” Blake said thoughtfully.

“And that’s why I was kinda freaking out about Nationals,” Hunter told his brother, who looked at him with concern. “Because when fall comes, if there’s no aliens, no attacks, then—”

“You’d be covering more shifts at Storm Chargers while I head off to senior year with- oh. _Oh_ ,” Blake said.

“Yeah.”

“But that’d mean we’d be apart for the first time in…years.”

“But not for long stretches,” Hunter pointed out. “And I know Shane, Dustin, Tori, even Cam would be around to keep you company. And I just…I dunno, it feels lame to be going from Power Ranger to stockroom boy because I couldn’t figure out what else to do.”

“Plenty of time to figure stuff out,” Blake said after a moment, just as they reached the road. “But let’s do it together, deal?”

“Deal,” Hunter said, fist bumping his brother before they mounted their bikes and rode off back towards Blue Bay Harbor, the setting sun behind them elongating their shadows ahead of them on the pavement.


	26. Chapter XX: Fire on the Mountain

_“If only a horrible storm can demolish the castle of the devil, then let the storm be victorious! It is not uncommon that heaven comes after hell!”_

  * Mehmet Murat Ildan



 

 

_July 31, 2003, 2:39 PM_

“So somehow it skipped _all_ of your minds?” Cam said, watching as Shane, Tori, Dustin, Blake, and Hunter fidgeted with embarrassment from where they stood in the main room of Ninja Ops. “I mean, Dustin I could believe—”

“Hey I was the one who remembered!”

“It’s true, he was,” Shane said, resting an arm along Dustin’s shoulders. “He actually said, ‘hey, hasn’t anyone told Cam that we’re going to the Action Games?’ and we kinda streaked straight from Storm Chargers to tell you.”

“We swear we didn’t mean to forget,” Hunter added. ‘It’s just, there’s a lot of stuff to get ready for the Games, and we all kinda figured you’d just _know_ from the monitoring thing.”

“I monitor aliens and your Ranger fans, Hunter, not your athletic careers.”

“I can understand how this could’ve happened,” Sensei Watanabe began, his words prompting Cam to tune out while his father reassured the Rangers that it was alright that they all go to watch Shane and Dustin compete in the 2003 U.S. Action Games. _Like he was going to say no,_ he thought to himself, watching as the Rangers began to cheer eagerly. _I mean, it’s not like he didn’t represent the Wind Ninja Academy eleven times in martial arts competitions himself._

“And you’re coming too, right?” Dustin asked.

“I really should stay here and monitor for alien activity Dustin.”

“What!?” Dustin shouted. “No, that is- that is not okay. You are coming with us.”

“The last time I came out with you guys for fun and not for Ranger business Shane got kidnapped and turned into a half-phoenix,” Cam reminded the Yellow Ranger. “And the time before that I got mickied by my _cousins_.”

“Ah—”

“...maybe third time’s the charm?”

“That’s _exactly_ what I’m worried about.”

“Cam, just come with us,” Tori said flatly. “It’s not like you’re going out of streak distance, and we all know that CyberCam can monitor the feed. I mean,” she continued, “it’s been _months_ since my birthday. Even you need to get off Academy grounds eventually.”

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Kanoi Watanabe said.

“Dad!”

“You know how I feel about teams working together Cameron.”

“This is the sword fighting thing again, isn’t it?”

“Sword fighting thing?” Blake asked.

“Yes, Blake,” Sensei Watanabe began. “You see—”

“—long story short I skipped the Ninja Academy Martial Conference in middle school because I got bored of staring at jocks, and Dad didn’t like it,” Cam interrupted.

“Hey, we are _not_ jocks,” Hunter said defensively. “So pack a cap and bag, because you’re going to the Action Games Samurai Ranger.”

 

 

_August 1, 2003, 10:27 AM_

    _I can’t believe I’m going to an X-sport competition,_ Cam thought to himself as Tori drove.

They had piled into Tori’s van earlier at Storm Chargers, with Cam opting to sit in the back near the gear across from Kelly, the famed owner of Storm Chargers that Cam had heard so much about.

“Not much of a talker, are you?” Kelly said after they had been driving awhile, fidgeting with one of the gear bags.

“Not much to say really,” Cam replied. “Most of the time it’s just me and my dad.”

“I was wondering about that.”

Cam raised his head from where he had rested it against the ban side to look at the woman. “Why?”

“Because you never come around the store,” Kelly admitted to him. “I mean, I see these five every day, and out of everyone they mention, I’m pretty sure you’re the only friend they have who isn’t, you know—”

“An extreme sport athlete?”

“Basically? And I remember you came to the smoothie thing, which was a total bust, but you didn’t come back after that. The food fight didn’t scare you off or anything?”

Cam grinned. “I help my dad run a martial arts academy,” he explained.

“Oh! Oh, yeah, that would—”

“—and our hours is mostly after school during the school year, and all day during the summer,” Cam continued, glad he didn’t have to come up with a cover story for the truth for once. “My job’s mostly running the tech side, with a little bit of hands on instruction for the advanced folks.”

“Advanced folks like—”

“Like them, yeah.”

“ _They’re_ advanced?” Kelly asked flatly, looking towards the front where the others sat. Dustin was leaning across Hunter’s lap to reach into a cooler. Blake and Tori were apparently fighting for control over the radio that Cam could barely hear. Shane seemed to have fallen asleep. “ _Them_?”

“As terrifying as it sounds,” Cam said, “yes, they are.”

“That does explain the sudden disappearances I suppose,” Kelly muttered thoughtfully.

“You noticed those?” Cam said, surprised.

Kelly snorted. “Obviously,” she said. “I’m practically their mother half the time as their parents are either at work or, ah, you know.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Kelly looked at Cam. “Mom or Dad?” she said at last.

“Mom.”

“That sucks.”

“…Thanks?”

“No really, it does. I lost my own mom when I was in high school, and let me tell you, things were _definitely_ never the same. It’s actually how I got Storm Chargers,” Kelly went on. “It was her store, and I didn’t want to close it or see some lame corporate big-wig get it all because she’d died, so I took it over.”

“That must’ve been an adventure,” Cam said politely, deciding to not voice the question that the lack of mention of her father had suggested.

“It was,” Kelly said just as the van pulled into the sight of the games, or more specifically the crowd of teenagers dressed in flashy colors and the part punk, part retro-graphic designs that Cam had come to know as skater clothes. “I got a store, and within three years, an entire team of teenage male athletes, and their dates, in need of watching over.”

“Plus one girl.”

“Plus Tori,” Kelly amended. “It’s not the most glamorous life, but it’s worth it, I think.”

“When my mom died I inherited an entire academy of martial arts students,” Cam replied quietly as Tori parked the van. “I know what you mean.”

Kelly nodded silently back as she opened the door to the Van. “You guys better check in,” she said as she got out, followed shortly after by Hunter, who managed to squeeze past Cam to lean out the door. “I’ll make sure your gear’s okay.”

“We’ll check the place out for, ah,” Hunter began.

“Let me guess,” Tori interrupted as she and Blake got out. “Chicks?”

“Well now that you mention it—”

“Come on, I’ll cruise with you,” Cam said, following Hunter out of the van while Dustin and Shane hopped out the other side.

“Who are you CyberCam?” Blake asked him.

“Hey, who said Real Cam can’t cruise?” Cam replied.

“Alright then, Cam and I’ll cruise, and you guys can head off to the starting spots,” Hunter said, pulling Cam after him into the crowd.

“So, who exactly are we cruising for?” Cam whispered to Hunter, following the Crimson Ranger. “Because last I checked, you’re not exactly on the market.”

“Well yeah,” Hunter replied, pausing from walking to look at a half-pipe being set up. “But it’s kinda expected that at least one of us does? Plus, not everyone’s from Blue Bay Harbor here you know.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning I can’t take it for granted.”

“Grant- _oh_ , you mean—”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “I mean, none of us have said anything, but the last time I went to the track a couple riders pulled me and Dustin aside to let us know they had our backs if stuff went down, and Shane mentioned that some boarders did the same—”

“—but they’re local,” Cam finished.

“Exactly,” Hunter nodded, gesturing towards where a large “US ACTION GAMES” banner hung over the opening of a large tent with tables inside before beginning to walk off in that direction. “Local folks know what we’re like, but who knows about these guys.”

“Thought you bikers were into pushing limits.”

“Tell that to Jarret Berry or Tim Werne.”

“Aren’t they both boarders?” Cam asked, remembering what he’d learned in trying to cram for the day’s trip so that he didn’t come off as an ignorant observer.

“There _are_ no out bikers,” Hunter muttered to him as they arrived at the tent, getting close enough for Cam to see that the table was marked with small stacks of what he guessed where registration packets. The tent just happened to also be staffed by two teenage girls: one a ginger in a low-cut, brown halter top and the other a brunette in a blue top.

“I see marketing agrees with you,” Cam whispered to the Crimson Ranger quietly.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Hunter said as they reached the front of the line.

“Names?” the brunette asked.

“Hunter Bradley and Cam Watanabe, checking registration for Shane Clarke and Dustin Brooks of Storm Chargers,” Hunter replied. “What’s your name?”

“Tawny Kemp,” the girl replied, visibly trying to polite as she looked the pile of packets.

“And I’m Blanche Lind,” the other girl said, leaning closer to Hunter. “Are you competing too, or are you just here to cheer your friends on?”

“Normally I’d be doing BMX,” Hunter admitted to her as Cam stepped forward to grab the packets from Tawny. “But today I’m just here for the view.”

“And you?” Tawny asked Cam.”

“Unless you’ve added martial arts into this thing when I wasn’t paying attention, I’m just here to watch,” Cam said.

“Well, you’re both in luck,” Blanche said, still looking at Hunter. “The view’s incredible.”

“Right on,” Hunter affirmed, smiling. “And what about you? Either of you competing?”

“No, we just work here,” Tawny told him. “But we’ll be competing in the Winter Games.”

“Which events?” Cam asked, curious.

Blanche blinked, as if surprised Cam would ask. “Tawny will be doing the Snowboard Superslope, and I’m doing the SnoCross.”

“The what?”

“She’ll be doing motocross on a snowmobile,” Tawny explained to him.

“So you know how to handle a bike,” Hunter said, looking at her with a practiced gaze that Cam was willing to gamble he developed back at the Thunder Academy.

“I know how to ride, yeah.”

 _Oh come on,_ Cam thought, rolling his eyes and seeing Tawny smile in response.

“This might take a while, Tawny whispered to Cam. “So you might want to wait for your friend over there.”

“Thanks,” Cam said, nodding. Stepping away from the tent he turned to look behind him—

—and saw Marah, Kapri, and a team of Kelzacks walking towards them.

“So you guys should come out sometime and watch a race,” Hunter was saying.

“Uh Hunter?”

“Not now Cam.”

Cam sighed. “Yes now,” he said.

He knew Hunter had turned around when he heard him say “I gotta go, but nice talking to you,” before grabbing Cam and pulling him towards the now set-up half-pipe that the aliens were walking towards.

 

 

_August 1, 2003, 4:17 PM_

“This is so frustrating,” Cam grumbled. “I can't get a fix on Hunter and Blake, and now Cybercam’s gone too.”

“Keep trying, keep trying,” Kanoi Watanabe encouraged his son.

 _I_ am _Dad_ , Cam thought angrily to himself. The attack at the Action Games had led to Cam checking out where the Marah and Kapri had been looking, which in turn had led to his amulet freezing in the seventy degree weather that was California in autumn, and that had eventually led to Cam going back to Ninja Ops to figure out what went wrong. Now, after one megazord battle that had destroyed both Vexacus and the Thunder Ranger Zords, and one bizarre security outage that had disabled his own Samurai Star and apparently taken CyberCam with it, Cam was beginning to think that either his Dad was right and there was a power struggle happening, or that the universe hated Cam having leisure time.

“Yes Cam,” a voice suddenly said. “Keep trying!”

_What the—_

”How did you get in here?” Cam asked, turning around to see Lothor standing at the entrance of Ninja ops.

“Hello to you too nephew,” Lothor replied. “It’s _so pleasant_ to see you again, face to face. Tell me, how have things been since you time travelled into the past and had me exiled from my rightful place as the head of the ninja academy?”

“Great,” Cam said sarcastically. “Full of explosions. You?”

“Oh fine, fine. I just spent the past few hours reprogramming your cyber replicant to bring us inside,” he said, gesturing behind him to where Cam could see Marah and Kapri come into view just as they flung CyberCam onto the ground.

“Sorry dude,” he said to Cam.

“Accepted,” Cam said, watching as CyberCam immediately began to flicker out.

“And I used my own DNA, which is the same as my brother’s, to take us the rest of the way,” Lothor finished. “I must say though, I like what you’ve done with the place. It was _very_ low-tech the last time I was in it. Of course, we both know my brother isn’t exactly _hip_ to computers, am I right?”

“I’m no brother of yours,” Cam heard his father speak up. “Our family tie has long been broken.”

“And you’ll never get _away_ with him,” Cam said quickly.

“Oh I didn’t come for him nephew,” Lothor replied. “I came for you.”

“You’re dreaming if you think I’m still going to willingly join you in this.”

“Perhaps I am,” Lothor said, turning to smirk at Cam, his voice sounding smugly amused. “But is it so wrong to dream of a world where the ultimate evil rules? Where I command an army of thousands? Is that _truly_ so wrong?”

“Uh...yes?” Cam asked his uncle.

Lothor rolled his eyes. “Fine, have it your way. Daughters, smash it all!”

 

 

_August 1, 2003, 4:29 PM_

_That’s it, I’m_ never _leaving Academy grounds again,_ Cam thought as he struggled against the ropes that Lothor had used to bind him to a corner of what Cam had assumed was his throne room. “You won’t get away with this Lothor,” he told him as he watched- felt- Lothor pull the Samurai Amulet from off his neck.

“Yeah he will,” Kapri said to her cousin. “This is all part of the master plan.”

“Which you’ve played into brilliantly cousin,” Marah added.

“Yeah right.”

“No really nephew, you can believe your cousins,” Lothor told him. “Here, take a look at this.”

Cam glanced towards where Lothor was standing next to the strange spider-bone structure that Cam thought was his throne, if the way Marah and Kapri sat on it meant anything. “Is that…?”

“The Scroll of Destiny,” Lothor confirmed. “Yes, I took it before our...unceremonious meeting in the past.”

“You based your entire masterplan on a scroll?” Cam asked disbelievingly. “I mean, I get using it as a weapon, but really, your _entire plan_? Even Dustin would be smarter than that.”

“Hey, Dustin’s pretty smart!” Marah said, before adding a softer “what, he is,” when Kapri glared at her.

“This scroll has predicted everything accurately!” Lothor hissed. “See, there is the part where I arrive on Earth as the glorious evil ninja warlord that I am, and there’s the part where I send monsters for you all to destroy, and see this pile in the corner?” Lothor asked, pointing to the bottom right of the page, “that is where I destroy you all once and for all!”

“...but you’re missing the bottom,” Cam said, hoping his voice sounded surer and more controlled than he found himself feeling at the news that the last six months of him, Tori, Dustin, Shane, Blake, and Hunter fighting had only furthered Lothor’s ambitions to rule the world. “You don’t know what could happen next.”

“Nice try, but _save_ it.” Lothor growled as he rolled up the scroll. “I know _exactly_ what happens next: payback. Choobo!”

“Yes sir?” Cam heard Choobo say as he came into view.

 _Choobo?! How’s_ he _the last general standing? I thought we destroyed him months ago_ , Cam thought to himself. _I honestly didn’t see that coming._

“Have you done as I asked?” Lothor said.

“Yes, sir! I’ve set the self-destruct mechanism on the ship, just like you ordered.”

“Hey, what about us?” Marah asked. “Aren’t we getting off the ship first?”

“Yeah, I thought we’d get to live, seeing as how we tricked Vexacus to get rid of the generals like you told us to,” Kapri added.

 _So the power grab was a trick!_ Cam thought. _That’s…actually really clever._

“We had to make sure the abyss was at maximum capacity,” Lothor was saying when Cam began to listen to him again, “but there’s always room for 2 more. Choobo!”

“On it sir!” Choobo replied, and Cam watched as the alien general pulled Kapri and Marah off the throne and tied them up on a beam just across from Cam.

“Good,” Lothor stated when he had finished tying. “Now come on. We have a planet to destroy!”

There was a bright flash, and when Cam had finally blinked away the lingering dark spots floating in front of his eyes, Choobo and Lothor were nowhere to be seen.

“Well _this_ bites,” Marah said after a moment.

“Tell me about it,” Cam said back.

Kapri sighed. “You know, for a second there, I _almost_ thought we’d finally done something right?”

“Yeah,” said Marah, her voice breaking. “Guess being evil isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Hey, you tried being good once,” Kapri said. “How was that?”

“It was...pretty good, actually.”

“Really?”

“Really! I was, like, actually _wanted_ and trusted and all that.”

“Huh,” Kapri said after a moment. “Maybe...maybe we should give it a try?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Marah said firmly. “Okay, let’s do that!”

“Alright!” Kapri shouted. “Hey cous, you hear that! We’re going _good_!”

“That’s great,” Cam told his cousins flatly. “If we don’t die on this ship first, I’ll be happy to get my dad to admit you to the Wind Ninja Academy. You can even wear special colored outfits and everything.”

“Yes!” Marah shouted. “FYI, mine’s going to be orange.”

“And mine’s going to be pur- hey, what are you doing?” Kapri asked.

Cam stared at his cousins. “Hmm?”

“Your hands,” Kapri clarified. “They’re doing, like, tiny twitchy things.”

Cam sighed. “It’s Kuji-kiri,” he admitted.

“The Samurai mudra thing?” Marah asked. “Wow, I didn’t know that you took after your mom that strongly.”

“...my dad taught me it when I was little,” Cam said. “It was probably the first thing he ever taught me.”

“He probably learned it from her then,” Kapri replied. “She must’ve been very smart.”

“Well duh, have you _seen_ our cousin?” Marah asked.

“Cam!” a voice suddenly cried out.

“Hunter?” Cam asked as he saw the Crimson Ranger come into view, followed shortly by his brother.”

“Cam!” Blake shouted, running up to him.

“Hey, don’t forget us!” Kapri shouted as the Thunder Rangers untied Cam.

“Thanks guys,” Cam said to Hunter and Blake.

“Anytime,” Blake said.

“You can’t just leave us here!” Marah yelled.

“Why not?” Hunter asked her.

Cam sighed. “Because they’re family,” he told Hunter. “Even when they’ve tried to destroy you repeatedly while under the influence of an evil space alien warlord.”

“Cam’s got a point man,” Blake told his brother.

“Ugh, fine,” Hunter said as he turned to cross the room and untie Marah and Kapri.

“Thank you,” Kapri said as she rubbed her hands together once she was untied. “Thank you so much.”

“Do either of you know how to release the other Rangers?” Cam asked his cousins as he shuffled them towards the entrance of the throne room. “We don’t have—”

“Hey cousin, I know this isn't a good time, but do you know if Dustin’s still mad at me?” Marah interrupted. “Because I think he's kinda cute and I—”

“Not angry but totally taken,” Hunter said as he and Blake followed behind him.

“By him. And the Red Ranger,” Blake added, ignoring a look that his brother shot him.

“Right on,” Kapri said, punching the air.

“Yeah, go Dustin for snagging two hotties,” Marah added.

 _Dimitria preserve me._ “Can’t we talk about this later!?” Cam shouted, ducking to avoid an exposed beam.

 “If you blow that console, it'll short out the ships operating systems and release the other ninja students,” Marah hurriedly told Cam, pointing to a small black box buried in the side of the room.

“Hunter, Blake, shoot that thing!” Cam instructed before turning to Marah. “Thanks,” he told her. “You know, you’re really not dumb.”

“I _know_ ,” Marah grumbled. “I keep telling people that, but no one ever really listens to me. Except for Dustin.”

Suddenly there was an explosion. “Done!” Hunter shouted, just as sparks started to erupt from the sides of the ship.

“Just in time,” Blake said to his brother. “Now let’s get out of here!”

“How?” Cam asked him. “In fact, how did you guys even get up here?”

“We used your zord,” Hunter told him.

“And we can use this teleporter to put us on it,” Kapri said, handing over a black brick with a large red button on it.

“Better hurry cousin!” Marah said as she dodged a shower of sparks.

Cam slammed down on the button. “Teleporting now!”

 

 

_August 1, 2003, 4:56 PM_

“I believe that belongs to me,” Cam heard himself say.

The words had the effect he’d hoped for. Planned for, really, his mind still reeling from the discovery of his human father and the Ninja Academy cadets while he had streaked back to the site of the Action Games. That was where, according to what his father had told him, the other Power Rangers had decided to lure Lothor for the final battle against the Power Rangers that the final scrap of the Scroll of Destiny had predicted.

They were words he’d edited down from a loftier speech as he’d ran across the field, around the Ninja Academy Cadets that had followed an exhausted— and now demorphed— pair of Thunder Power Rangers into battle against the Kelzacks and Choobo (who, Cam noticed, was nowhere to be seen, and so had hopefully been destroyed when he hadn’t been looking).

They were words that also caused Lothor to turn around and look at Cam, un-morphed, in jeans and a tan-green plaid shirt, standing on a half-pipe, with surprise.

“Not anymore,” Lothor said, aiming the amulet of Cam’s mother that lay in his hand towards Cam to blast him with a shot of green light. “Goodbye nephew!”

Cam felt himself flung back painfully onto the ground.

“He’s not going anywhere!” he heard Shane shout.

“Fine, I’ll take you in his place!”

 _What does he- he must be using the amulet to steal their Ranger Powers_ , Cam thought as he tried dizzily to stand up. _So_ that’s _why Hunter and Blake are de-morphed._

“At last, I have your Ranger Powers,” he heard Lothor say after a moment.

“We won’t let you win,” Cam heard Shane answer.

“What can you do to me without your powers?”

“We may not be Power Rangers, but we still have Powers.” Shane replied. “Power of air!”

“Power of Earth!”

‘Power of Water!”

 _They’re actually summoning an elemental twister,_ Cam thought, finally managing to stand up again just in time to watch as beams of primary-colored light emanated forth from the body of the three teenagers he’d known as ninja students and Power Rangers, curling and braiding around each other to form a snowy-printed funnel.

“What in the name of Dimitria—” he heard Blake begin, only to Hunter answer him with a “Wind Ninjas, man. _Wind Ninjas_.”

“That’s right,” Cam told them as they watched the funnel suck Lothor into its cyclonic grasp and hurl Lothor into what Cam saw was an open pit in the ground with such force that the earth sealed the pit over again.

“They did it,” Hunter said, sounding stunned. “They actually did it.”

“We did it!” Blake shouted to the ninja cadets, who were standing around dazedly as they watched the Kelzacks they had been fighting simply vanish into thin air.

Cam felt himself moving, hurrying to run up the small side of the hill towards the other Wind Ninjas, who were already receiving hugs and slaps on the back from their fellow Thunder Ninjas.

“So...what just happened?” Tori asked him.

“Lothor’s evil,” Cam told her as he reached the top of the hill. “That much must’ve overloaded the Abyss, causing it to close on itself, and taking him with it.”

“So he’s gone? _Really_ gone? Dustin asked.

“I believe so.”

“And our Ranger powers?” Hunter asked.

“They’re gone too,” Shane said, thoughtfully.

“Wait, Abyss?” Tori asked Cam.

Cam nodded. “Abyss of Evil,” Cam told her. “Apparently Lothor’s plan was to overload it with all the aliens you’ve beaten, making it explode open, and reign revenge upon the world.”

“Oh.”

“Huh,” Dustin said. “That...was almost smart of him.”

“He based it on the Scroll of Destiny.”

“Dude, I take it back,” the former Yellow Ranger immediately said. “Even _I_ wouldn’t count that much on a scroll.”

“Yeah, it could get run over by an Earth ninja,” Blake teased.

“ _Dude_.”

“But our Ranger powers- your amulet- it’s all gone,” Shane said.

“But not our ninja ones?” Hunter asked. “Or your...Karminian fire power thing, I’m guessing?”

“Well Skyla’s fire is…quiet right now,” Shane admitted. “I think I may have overloaded her?”

“Okay so, I have questions,” Tori said, her voice breaking the pause that had followed Shane speaking, “but first thing’s first.”

“What?” Cam asked her.

Tori sighed. “We’ve got an entire sport arena to clean up and reopen to the public,” she grumbled, “or your dad will _kill_ _us_ for exposure.”

 

 

_August 8, 2003, 1:19 PM_

“Cameron.”

“Dad.”

“May I have a moment of your time?”

“Of course,” Cam replied, looking across the table in the Ninja Ops kitchen at the man sitting across from him. The novelty of his dad being a man hadn’t worn off even after a week, a week spent rebuilding the Academy with the surviving Wind Ninja Cadets in between making contact again with their loved ones, many of whom had already managed to connect their disappearance with the arrival of Lothor and so were greatly relieved that they were back.

 _No exposure issues from worried families_. _That’s_ also _a minor miracle_ , Cam thought to himself as he watched his father reach out and pick up some files from the kitchen counter.

“As you know, we are nearing the beginning of the school year,” Sensei Watanabe began.

“Thankfully we’re ready for all the students we accepted before Lothor struck,” Cam said.

“Yes, the cadets have done an impressive job in rebuilding the classrooms, though we will likely have to remain here for a while longer.”

“I actually kinda like it,” Cam admitted as he looked around the kitchen. “It’s nice and quiet.”

“It is because of that quiet that I wished to speak to you.”

“...is it going to get louder?” Cam asked hesitantly.

“Perhaps.”

“ _How_?”

“You see, there is one thing that we have neglected to do as we’ve rebuilt,” Kanoi told his son. “We have not yet held the graduation and Master ceremony.”

“The graduation ceremony won’t take long, but nobody’s been nearing achieving Master status since I’ve been _born_.”

“This has been true until today.”

“Who are you thinking of raising?” Cam asked.

Sensei Watanabe split the pile of folders in half, sliding one portion of them towards Cam. “Them,” he said.

Cam looked down at the folders, and wasn’t surprised to see their outsides bearing the names of Tori Hanson, Shane Clarke, and Waldo “Dustin” Brooks in clean, if hastily written, sharpie.

“Well they did save the world by creating an elemental cyclone,” Cam said, pushing the folders back towards his father. “And even if they were terrible students, they _do_ have six months of in-depth ninja and Power Ranger training—”

“I take it then you would be comfortable with them working here?”

Cam blinked. “Well yes,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“What if you also had to live with them?”

“I...are you talking about _purposefully exposing_ them as ninjas to their families?” Cam said, sounding horrified. “Can we _do_ that?”

“Do what?” a voice asked from the doorway of the kitchen.

“Tell Dustin’s, Tori’s, and Shane’s families they’re ninjas,” Cam stated, looking towards the doorway at his cousins with what he was sure was a look of panic.

“Why?” Marah asked.

“I am thinking of raising them up to Masterhood,” Sensei Watanabe told her. “And, should they accept, I would like to make them teachers.”

“Which would mean they’d have to live here,” Cam said as he watched the two come sit next to him and his father around the table.

 _That_ had been one of the more surreal experiences of the past week. It hadn’t taken long for Marah and Kapri to settle into Ninja Ops or offer to help rebuild the Academy. For Cam, it had been like gaining two older sisters at once. It was an experience that equally pleased and irritated Cam as they slowly befriended his friends, even convincing CyberCam to help them code in stronger defenses that months of trying to infiltrate Ninja Ops had led them to think were needed…which had somehow resulted in CyberCam gaining a new wardrobe entirely in shades of purple and orange.

“Cool!” Kapri said loudly. “It’d be _totally awesome_ having more people around here. Not that you aren’t awesome cous—”

“It’s just we’re used to a lot more people being around,” Marah interrupted, “and it’d be great to actually get to know the people we spent six months sending Kelzacks against.”

“You just want to talk with Tori,” Kapri teased.

“She has excellent taste in clothes, and I _need clothes_ Kapri. I don’t look this good on accident, and no amount of dyeing old uniforms is going to work.”

“Yeah, but they’d have to _live here_ ,” Cam repeated, deciding to ignore the likely laundry nightmare Marah’ dyed uniforms were making for the moment. “Like, almost full-time.”

“So?” Kapri asked.

“So they’re parents _don’t know they’re ninjas._ ”

“They-but...what did they _think_ their kids were doing for six months?” Marah asked Cam’s father.

“It appears the timing of your attacks were such that their parents never knew they were involved,” Kanoi Watanabe told her. “Except for Shane’s brother Parker, who I believe was attacked by one of Lothor’s warriors at one point.”

“Oops,” Marah said.

“It’s alright,” Cam told her. “Parker’s fine, and it turned out that particularly alien may have helped make up Shane’s mind about dating Dustin and Hunter.”

“Really?” Kapri asked curiosuly. “Which one was it?”

“Isaac. Or, ah Eye-zak, I guess,” Cam said, pointing at his eye.”

“Oh that was one of Motodrone’s!” Marah reminded Kapri. “You remember, he had the collars—”

“Oh right,” Kapri said, shuddering. “Glad you destroyed that one. He was _mean._ ”

“Who’s Motodrone?” Cam asked Marah.

“Nevertheless,” Sensei Watanabe interrupted before Marah could answer her cousin. “I feel it is appropriate for us to tell their families now, and offer them the positions they have rightfully earned.”

“Well, duh,” Kapri said.

“Oh, we can tell them!” Marah offered.

“Hey, yeah, we’re good at delivering news like that!” Kapri added. “Lothor had us deliver bad news all the time. Good news would be a nice change.”

“Then you two may accompany me while I speak with their families,” Sensei Watanabe said.

“And what should I be doing while you terrify three families with the fact that their kids are lethal warriors?” Cam asked.

“I would like you to prepare the cadets for the ceremony Cameron,” his father replied simply. “We’ll be having it in two days.”

“That’s...fast,” Cam said after a moment.

“I know, but unfortunately time is of the essence, as we have two Masters that will have to travel.”

“I thought they all lived in town?” Kapri asked.

“It is not them I refer to,” Sensei Watanabe said as he picked up two of the folders.

“We’re graduating Blake and Hunter too?!” Marah said excitedly. “Uncle!”

“What exactly did you have to offer Sensei Oromino to get that?” Cam asked his father bluntly.

“Why do you think I offered anything?”

“Because there’s no way he’d let two Thunder Rangers would graduate from here that easily?”

“Wow, way to be suspicious,” Kapri said to her cousin.

“It was not difficult as they had completed their training with us,” Sensei Watanabe admitted to his son. “But you are right to ask.”

“And?”

“They will be given the Thunder style certification instead of the Wind one, and we are obligated to join them once a season for a retreat.”

“A retreat?”

“Retreat like leadership retreat?” Marah asked. “Or retreat like mandatory fun?”

“Probably both,” Cam answered.

“Well I can take a vacation every once in a while,” Kapri said after a moment. “Especially if it means we get to visit the Thunder Academy.”

“Kapri really liked the scenery there,” Marah explained to Cam. “Said she liked the cliffs.”

“What, I like high places,” Kapri said defensively when Cam looked at her.

“Then we shall graduate them all,” Sensei Watanabe concluded.

“So I’m guessing two of those are theirs,” Cam said, pointing to the stack of folders still next to his father. “But whose is the last one?”

Cam’s father looked at him. “Marah,” he said at last, “if you could be so kind as to open the refrigerator and bring out that cheesecake you and Kapri bought yesterday?”

“Sure thing Uncle!”

“Oh, I’ll get tea started,” Kapri added as Marah got up, getting up from the table herself.

“What is this, Golden Girls?” Cam asked, looking confusedly around the room.

“What’s that?” Kapri asked her sister.

“Oh, it’s this great Earth sitcom about four old women living-”

“I thought the snack might help settle soothe us before we discuss this last person,” Sensei Watanabe said.

“Oh just say it Uncle,” Kapri told him. “You know Cam’s going to be—”

“It’s me, isn’t it,” Cam interrupted. “You want to raise me to Ninja Masterhood.”

“Really Uncle?” Marah asked as she shut the fridge, bearing in her hands a large platter with the multicolored cheesecake that she and Kapri had sworn was “Ranger-themed” resting on it.

“Yes, and no.”

“What,” Cam asked his father.

“I cannot raise you to ninja masterhood after a lifetime of being banned from it Cameron,” Sensei Watanabe said. “That would be nepotistic, a fact, I might add, that Sensei Oromino found persuasive in us having the right to raise his own sons.”

“Then what would you—”

“I am raising you to samurai masterhood.”

“...oh,” Cam whispered.

“Traditionally it would fall to your mother or her family to do so,” Cam’s father continued. “But as they are not here I...well, that duty falls to me.”

“Dad.”

“I know it doesn’t replace the loss of her amulet, my son,” Kanoi said. “But it is what I can offer.”

“I—thank you, dad,” Cam whispered softly.

“Oh, hey, that’s- wait right here!” Kapri said, hurriedly putting a kettle on the stove she had turned on. “Just- yes, I agree, do it Uncle, just wait _one second_.”

“What’s going on?” Cam asked Marah, who looked gleeful.

“Just eat your cheesecake and wait,” she told Cam.

“I—”

“Okay, got it,” Kapri said, panting, returning with one of her hands closed into a fist in front of her. “And wow, ninja streaking is _way_ _harder_ than teleporting! How did you guys not get wiped out all the time?”

“Mostly energy drinks and vast amounts of food,” Cam began. “Kapri, what’s in your—”

“Marah and I made you something,” Kapri interrupted. “Ta-da!”

Cam looked into her open hand. “That’s…an amulet,” Cam said, reaching out to pick up the pendant resting on her plam.

“Kapri and I got CyberCam to help us make it,” Marah told him as Cam looked at the amulet in his hand. “We forged it out of some of the ninja steel that was left over from when we repaired Ninja Ops.”

“We figured, hey, maybe a new Samurai Amulet might be nice?” Kapri asked hesitantly.

The amulet in Cam’s hand shone in the kitchen light, the steel appearing almost white in the glow. It wasn’t as globular as his mother’s had been, but was instead boxy, it’s shape closer to that of a miniature tsuridourou. It didn’t look like his mother’s amulet at all, its corners making it feel jagged instead of smooth, soft but not worn.

But Cam watched as, in his hands, a small, emerald light began to softly flicker in its center.

“It’s perfect,” he told them, feeling pleased to see Marah and Kapri’s faces break out into smiles. “Thank you.”

 

 

_August 9, 2003  12:07 PM_

“I could not be more proud of you. Of the sacrifices you have made for your school, and indeed for your planet. The world is a better place today because of you,” Sensei Watanabe was saying to the assembled crowd of graduates, who cheered in response. Soon the Air, Water, and Earth cadets watching them had drawn the graduates into small clumps as they celebrated the way their styles normally did: with diplomas being tossed like juggling wands into the air, tiny dances of celebration, and more bear hugs and whooping than most sane people would ever prefer.

Not that Cam was paying any attention. Instead, he was looking as Sensei Oromino and Leanne (who had happily flown in) hugged Blake and Hunter, while Marah, Kapri, and his father all came towards him.

“Congrats cous,” Kapri said, giving him a brief nudge before his father hugged him.

“Yeah,” Marah added. “I mean, it’s not a surprise to us or anything, but you did great!”

“Thanks,’ Cam said, just before he felt himself pulled backward into a hug.

“Dude, we _graduated_ ,” Shane said to Cam. “Man, did you ever think we’d make it?”

“No, not really,” Cam teased the former Red Ranger, “but I guess you had to finish sometime.”

“Haha,” Tori said to him as she walked over, Dustin following close behind. “Face it, deep down, you’re happy we graduated.”

“Well yeah,” Kapri told her. ‘He wouldn’t have agreed with Uncle about—”

“Kapri, that’s a surprise!” Marah hissed.

“About the Master thing?” Dustin asked her, drawing his towards him.

“What Master thing?” Shane asked.

“Dude, we’re teaching here!” Dustin told his boyfriend. “Sensei already told my folks and everything.”

“What?” Tori asked Cam.

“I had intended to tell your parents after you graduated today,” Sensei Watanabe told her, “but as Dustin’s parents will be traveling—”

“Dad’s taking Mom on a forty-day cruise,” Dustin explained.

“It was necessary to tell them now,” Sensei Watanabe finished.

“So you accepted?” Cam asked Dustin.

“Yep," the former Yellow Ranger replied. “Got my bags ready to move into Ninja Ops and everything. Full-time teaching comes with living quarters apparently,” he added, looking at Tori.

“Sweet,” Kapri said. “

“Hey, you’ll be right down the hall from us!” Marah told him.

“And next door to me,” Cam added. “Prepare for gaining two whole new siblings.”

“So does this mean Dustin’s parents know he was a Power Ranger?” Tori asked Sensei Watanabe.

“No, just that he’s a ninja.”

“Dad was super impressed,” Dustin told her. “He was like, ‘son, if you can be a ninja master, be a ninja master.’ So I’m GED-ing it and moving in, bike and all.”

“Bike?” Kapri asked.

Dustin snorted. “I just won third place at the national level, there’s no way I’m stopping moto. Seriously, what do you expect me to do every summer in between folks being here, _not_ race in everything?”

“Motocross events are mostly in summer?” Cam asked curiously.

“Well yeah,” Dustin said, blinking. “Who’d want to ride a bike in snow?”

“What’s with the huddle?” Blake asked as he and Hunter came forward. “I thought we were partying?”

“Apparently we’re getting teaching offers,” Tori said.

“...did you not know that?” Hunter asked her.

“Did you?”

“No, but Sensei Oromino just offered me a job.”

“You taking it?” Shane asked his boyfriend.

“Yeah?” Hunter said slowly. “I mean, Blake’s going on tour with the Factory folks—”

“You got an offer? Nice!” Kapri said to the younger Bradley brother.

“Glad you’re taking it up,” Shane added.

“—and our lease is up, and it’s not like I want to work at Storm Chargers forever. Going back and teaching feels pretty good. And Sensei Oromino said I could bring my bike along. Apparently,” Hunter said, looking at Cam, “he’s a little jealous of the Tsunami Cycles, and is hoping to train up a modern Thunder cavalry.”

“Dude, I’m so in for that,” Dustin said, leaning over to give his boyfriend a peck on the check.

“Plus Dad and Leanne promised they’ll back him if somebody’s stupid enough to make fun of his boyfriends,” Blake spoke up as Dustin leaned back. “Gotta love an employer who’s open to alternative lifestyles.”

“Oh, so they’re Shaders too?” Marah asked.

“Ah...huh?” Hunter stammered, glancing at Cam.

Cam sighed. “Marah had CyberCam leak footage of you all fighting Lothor, him falling into the Abyss, a faked press release saying that you’re going back underground now that Blue Bay Harbor is safe, and then _incredibly_ faked footage of the Crimson, Red, and Yellow Rangers out on a date, ” he told Hunter. “Apparently, Dustin’s fangirls approved of the idea that you all are retiring to the _private_ life together.”

“What.”

“Dude, I knew those girls had my back!” Dustin cheered. “My fans are the best!”

“They- what?” Shane asked, sounding stunned.

“Oh yeah,” Marah said. “They totally ship it, and of course you gotta have a name.”

“So we polled them,” Kapri said, “and Shaders won by a landslide.”

“You polled them?” Tori asked, sounding surprised.

“Apparently Lothor had them do canvassing,” Cam informed her.

“Huh.”

“Yeah, Uncle may have been evil,” Kapri told her, “but turns out he was a _really_ good internship supervisor.”

“Anyway, our polling found that the idea for the name is that we’re basking in the glory of your love,” Marah explained.

“Oh Dimitria,” Hunter groaned. “Seriously?”

“If it makes you feel better, the next three most popular were Hades-bound, Rainbow Dashers, and Fulgurites,” Cam told him.

“Okay, Shaders doesn’t sound that bad,” Shane said after the group had been silent for while.

“Yeah, it’s nice and easy to say?” Blake said.

“And doesn’t involve references to getting smote,” Tori added.

“And it works with their real life first name initials,” Kapri pointed out.

“SHD,” Dustin spelled aloud. “Oh, that’s cool.”

“But yeah, nice to know your folks are in,” Marah said. “We’ll loop them onto the listserv. Except for you and Blake’s, obviously, the dead don’t get e-mail. I think. Do they?”

“Please don’t find out,” Hunter told her. “Please.”

“Yeah, I think we can only handle so much gossip,” Shane told her.

“You’re the first and youngest ninja masters in a generation,” Sensei Watanabe spoke up, his words drawing attention from the others after having remained silent for so long. “And, whether they know it or not, you are also the Power Rangers.”

“Meaning…” Cam asked his father.

Kanoi grinned. “Meaning that if you think the entire Ninja Academy world isn’t going to be on that list within a month _anyway_ , you are sadly mistaken,” he informed the teenagers. “At least if my nieces add us we _might_ have some moderation privileges.”

“Oh,” Blake said.

“So I hate to be rude, but back to the part where apparently I’m telling my parents I’m a ninja master with a teaching offer?” Tori asked. “Because I’m pretty sure that, even if I get a GED, they’re going to want to see something with gainful employment.”

“Oh, I’ve got you covered on that,” Dustin said. “See, I told Kelly—”

“—Dude!” Shane shouted. “Is _that_ why she was all teary today? I thought she was just sad we were seniors!”

“Yeah, she was _so overwhelmed_ ,” Dustin said, sounding almost bashful. “She’s, like, super proud of us for being ninjas, and _super annoyed_ that she hadn’t figured it out. Though, ah, she may have figured out we were the Power Rangers like ten seconds later?”

 _Well so much for that secret staying secret,_ Cam thought.

“Wow man, you went in big,” Blake was saying aloud.

Dustin nodded. “Anyway, once she got over yelling at me for endangering my life saving her store,” he continued, “she kinda offered a job for anyone needing something to do?”

“But I don’t work at Storm Chargers,” Tori pointed out.

“Apparently you must be there enough for the offer to apply,” Cam told her.

“Given what you have said about the lack of women in the field, I’m sure Kelly would love to have another woman around,” Sensei Watanabe said.

 _And probably she’d find it appropriate it to pass on the store to someone who’s practically her own daughter,_ Cam added to himself.

“That...oh, that might actually work,” Tori said.

“It’d definitely keep you busy,” Blake said quietly.

“Hey, just because both your brother and your girlfriend are going to be awesome good Wind Ninjas doesn’t mean you should feel sad,” Marah told him.

“Yeah,” Kapri added, snorting. “If anything, it means you’re going to see even more of them since they don’t have to be on campus when the students aren’t!”

“And Tori’ll probably have to go to every match with you as Kelly’s assistant coach,” Hunter pointed out.

“Hey, yeah!” Blake said, brightening up.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Tori told him. “Right after I apparently shock the daylights out of my parents and move into Ninja Ops across from Dustin.”

“Yeah, girl ninja bonding time!” Marah said.

“We are not going shopping,” Tori told her. “There’ll be way too many senior around.”

“No, you just have to have ideas,” Kapri said to the former blue Ranger. “Marah’s programmed a printing thing.”

“Oh?”

“And you Shane?” Cam interrupted. “You up for it?”

“I...don’t know,” Shane admitted. “I mean, I have a lot to talk to my parents about, but I think they’ll be more okay with this than me taking up True Trucks on their skateboarding option?”

“We can find out together,” Sensei said. “As I’ll be the one telling them about the offer.”

“But we won’t tell them about the boyfriends,” Marah added.

“No,” Shane said. “No if I’m doing this, I better do it all in one blow.”

“Brave of you,” Cam said.

Shane shrugged. “Not really,” he said, “but if I’m ever going to do it, now’s probably a good time. And it did work with Parker, so.”

“A wise idea,” Sensei Watanabe told him.

“Yeah,” Hunter said, smiling. “I know what you mean.”

“...so if the life-altering conversations are done, can we party now?” Blake said after a moment.

Cam rolled his eyes. “We have to get to the reception eventually anyway Dad.”

“Yes, let us adjourn,” Kanoi said.

 

 

_August 14, 2003, 3:21 PM_

_Thank Dimitria it’s a minimum school day_ , Cam thought as he marked down the new cadets entering the Academy grounds. _This would feel even longer than it is if I had to do it while the sun was setting._

“Keep it moving!” he shouted, gesturing ahead of him. “New students, go right over there!”

He had been standing in the afternoon at the new formal entry arch to the main Academy square. The white pebble path winding past the gateway had been decorated with the emblems of the Wind Ninja Academy emblazoned on primary-colored banners, and ran directly in front of where Cam stood, clipboard in hand, his new Samurai Steel amulet tucked neatly into the black ceremonial kimono (complete with dark green hem) Hunter had gifted to him for Orientation Day:

 

_[“Just remember to look after our boys,” Hunter had said as he handed over the package._

_Cam stared at him. “You shouldn’t have,” he said as he opened the box._

_“Yeah I did,” Hunter told him as Cam finally removed the inner lining and saw the richly textured cloth of a kimono inside it. “I owe you for Sensei Titanus at least.”_

_“No- ah- well yes you do owe for me that, but this_ really _isn’t necessary to get me to look after Shane and Dustin. I made you a promise that I would, and a promise is a promise,” Cam had replied as he ran a hand over the kimono’s hem. “And they’re your boys, not mine.”_

_“Not yet.”_

_Cam looked up at the new Thunder Academy sensei. “Excuse me?”_

_Hunter had laughed. “Hey, from one Sensei’s son to another?” he said. “There are different ways to lay claim to someone. And I know you don’t feel you’ve done that, or should, but if you think_ we _haven’t done that when it comes to you, you’ve got another thing coming.”_

_“Tori’s offered to come watch Blake, huh?_

_Hunter had grinned, a look that, to Cam, came more easily to him every day. “I may have interrupted the goodbye for a bit, but yeah,” he said, his voice trailing off wistfully._

_“And you know we’re going to see you next month for the Fall Equinox,” Cam reminded him, knowing that Hunter was probably thinking about how busy the day had been with packing up the Thunder Shack to move._

_Cam hadn’t gone. Lothor wasn’t around anymore, but that was no reason to jinx it._

_“Exactly,” Hunter said back to Cam. “So I’m not going to make you promise to come and visit me. Just…promise me again you’ll take care of Dustin and Shane for me. At least, until we’re all together again?”_

_“I promise you I will,” Cam had replied, and that had been that.]_

“Ahem.”

Cam looked up from the clipboard that he had been staring at and glanced at the archway. “You’re kidding,” he said.

Marah and Kapri smiled at him from where they stood side-by-side in the archway.

“Hello, family right?” Kapri said, ignoring the slight increase in whispering among the cadets behind her that Cam knew was going to end up in starting the first round of cadet gossip for the year.

“And Cam, we really have to talk about these outfits,” Marah said, gesturing at her bright orange cadet uniform that Cam knew she and Kapri had spent the last few days altering, “ ‘cause they really make my butt look big.”

“Just...go,” Cam said, not bothering to mark them down as they had, technically, enrolled the night before. “I have students to mark off.”

“Not as big as your head,” Kapri said teasingly to her sister.

“My head’s not that big!”

“It is a shame one cannot choose one’s family,” Cam heard his father say as he walked up next to him, watching as the last batch of the new students pass by.

“They’re not so bad,” Cam told him, “and besides, I’m just glad I don’t have to feed mine guinea pig food anymore.”

“That is a benefit for us all,” Kanoi said, sounding relieved. “Is that the last of the students?”

‘I think—”

“Hey, wait up!” a voice shouted.

Cam looked up just in time to see three students, dressed in the neutral black training uniforms that all the cadets wore, pile onto the path. Two were boys, with dark hair and eyes, though one was notable tanner than the other. The third was a girl with streaming blonde hair. Their faces were curved, with softer, subtle differences that Cam knew immediately were going to be all that separated them from the similarity everyone would be seeing between them and the three new Sensei of the Wind Ninja Academy.

“We’re here!” the girl said.

“We can see that,” Sensei Watanabe said.

“Yeah, I- I’m Eric McKnight,” one of the boys said. “Sorry we’re late dude. My van broke down.”

“No one says dude anymore Eric,” the girl said.

“Yeah they do,” Eric insisted.

“Pretty sure they don’t,” the third boy told him.

“Man, now you sound like my brother Connor.”

“Might I suggest you carry on this insightful conversation on the linguistic currents of today’s youth with our other students?” Cam said, pointing down the path.

“Right, right, sorry!” the girl said, all but pulling the boys after her.

“Dad,” Cam said, watching as they passed. “I love you, you know that.”

“Yes?”

“But telling you right now,” Cam continued. “I’m earmarking that Eric kid for Dustin, because I don’t think I have it in me to go through all this again.”

“Then we will leave their training to the three new teachers,” Sensei Watanabe said.

“Karma?”

“More like a lesson in how a happy ending is nothing more than a new beginning,” Cam’s father said as Tori, Shane, and Dustin walked into view. They moved fluidly next to each other side by side in their own kimonos, the shades of their elements streaked in parallel slashes down the center front folding as they bowed before Cam, smiling at him as they moved. “Besides, one should never break up a winning team.”

“Amen to that,” Cam heard Hunter and Blake say, the brothers walking up beside them, Blake dressed in his navy riding gear as if he had come straight from the track.

“Sorry we’re late,” Dustin said, cheerfully as he stood. “Today was the first day of the X-games, and we wanted to make sure CyberCam got the opening recorded.”

“Figures,” Cam said, smiling.

“Dude, you look good,” Hunter said admiringly.

“Yeah?” Dustin said, swaying in his kimono. “It’s a little swishy to me.”

“Yeah, you definitely got the better outfit,” Shane said, looking over Hunter, who stood dressed in the leathers of the Thunder Academy.

“You like it?” Hunter asked.

“Don’t I?” Dustin said.

“Oh come on, it’s not like I’m inside a ninja bubble,” Blake complained to them. “I’m right here.”

“Welcome to my world for the last six months,” Cam told him, making the group laugh.

“Oh, you love us,” Dustin said, putting an arm over Cam’s shoulder. “Though hey, Hunter, you mind if I ask any of your cadets how bubble travel felt? I’ve been dying to know since Toxipod.”

“If you can get them to tell you, be my guest,” Hunter said. “So far they’re all staying pretty quiet around me.”

“They’re in awe of his righteous,” Blake said, Tori snorting behind him.

“I wouldn’t say I love you,” Cam corrected. “More like you’ve grown on me. Like a fungus.”

“Dude, that’s harsh!” Dustin whined.

“Dustin, he just earmarked you a student,” Tori pointed out.

“Hey yeah- dude, does he remind you of me?” Dustin asked Cam.

Cam nodded, resisting the urge to tell Dustin how much Eric sounded like him.

“Does he get to summon the Mammoth Spirit?”

“Dimitria Dustin, we’ve been over this,” Cam blurted out. “It’s not happening.”

“But—”

No one’s summoning The Mammoth One like that ever again. There’s no way.”

“Now, see, I don’t-”

“No,” Cam insisted. “There is actually a higher likelihood of your new student’s identical twin brother merging with the spirit of a _Tyrannosaurus Rex_ to fight lizard men than there is of _any of us_ forcing the ancestral spirit of the Earth Wind ninjas back to this dimension for fun.”

“If you excuse me, I shall go begin the induction ceremony,” Sensei Watanabe said suddenly as he began to walk away.

“We’ll be right there Dad,” Cam called after him.

“Looks like you guys had better get going,” Blake said.

“Yeah,” Tori said. “I guess…”

 _Oh,_ Cam thought to himself as he watched his friends fall quiet. _Oh, it’s finally sinking in that we’re actually doing this._

“We’ll see you next month for the Fall Equinox,” Cam said suddenly, loudly to Hunter. “Make sure to drag Blake home for it.”

“Yeah- No doubt,” Hunter said, forcing a smile onto his face as he pulled Cam tight against him, hugging him for the first time that Cam could remember.

 _Great,_ Cam thought to himself as he hugged back. _We all but live around each for six months, and it’s just now I’m getting a hug...Dimitria, I hope this doesn’t mean he’ll start pining for more hugs from me from now on._

“Yeah, and remember, we’re webcaming the X-games tonight,” Shane said to his boyfriend when Cam let him go, reaching out to pull him closer.

“There’s gotta be a better way to say that,” Cam muttered as Shane and Dustin kissed Hunter.

“CyberCam’s set them up with those new Logitech webcams,” Tori whispered to Cam. “I think he’s going to walk them through making video phone calls later tonight so they can watch the X-Games together.”

“And you and Blake?”

“We already agreed not to say goodbye,” Blake said, giving Tori’s hand a squeeze, “though I’ll take my own kiss now if you don’t mind.”

“Please,” Cam said leaning back, looking away as the former Navy ranger kissed Tori.

“Well, here’s to us,” Hunter said after they’d stopped. “I- be seeing you.”

“In all the familiar places,” Dustin told him.

For a moment the new Wind Ninja Sensei stood silently, watching as their boyfriends and New Thunder Ninja Sensei walked past the other side of the arch and- with one last parting glance behind them- streaked in a velvet blur away from them.

“So what now?” Dustin asked after a moment.

“Now we go listen to our boss introduce our new students,” Tori told him.

“Kendrix,” Shane muttered.

“Okay, that reminds me, I gotta ask,” Dustin said as the four of them began to walk back. “What is _with_ that Dimitria swear Cam?”

“Excuse me?” Cam replied.

“Like, I know why Tori and I swear by Zordon, and pretty much anyone who’s ever heard of Kendrix Morgan knows why you’d swear by her, but Dimitira?”

“She’s the Legendary Founder of all the Ninja Academies,” Cam explained.

“Wait, a _female_ _sensei_ founded all the academies, and I’m just now hearing about this?” Tori said.

“Yeah, that’s harsh,” Shane added.

“Well, for the most part, it’s just viewed as a historical relic,” Cam added as they walked, the main square filled with students starting to come into view. “It’s not like anyone is practicing her specific style anymore, though I did hear rumors that there’s a master’s son over at the Claw Academy who’s working on reinventing her famed “blissful inquiries” method of study.”

“What?” Dustin asked.

“I mean, I’m guessing he’s a bit of a lone wolf on that one, but-”

“No, I mean, Claw Academy?”

“Oh. Yes,” Cam said. “Formally they’re called the Pai Zhuq Academy, but they’re nicknamed the Claw Academy because they work with animal spirits. At least, the ones who aren’t ancestral ones living in alternative dimensions.”

“So _close_ ,” Dustin grumbled.

Tori laughed. “Guys,” she said hurriedly as the quartet reached the square. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. All I know is I’ve turned into Wind Water Ninja Sensei. But…I just want to say, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Right on,” Shane said.

“This is going to be awesome!” Dustin cheered.

 _It certainly is_ , Cam thought to himself as they drifted into the square. _It certainly is._

 

 

__


	27. Appendix A: Brain on the Bike, Feet on the Board- the After Every Storm There is a Rainbow (and ours is primary colored) Fanmix

The following is a fanmix for this fic. Each song was chosen to reflect some point of the emotional highs and lows of the characters, and are all songs that they might've heard at Storm Chargers or on the Harbor Boardwalk, as they all were fairly common songs in that scene in California between ~1998-2003. Multiple songs may apply to multiple persons. Genres are pop and pop punk.

 

Soundtrack listing:

Download available at: http://www.mediafire.com/file/r1hf0sd7chcj4v2/Brain_on_the_Bike_Feet_on_the_Board.zip


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